The Virological Evolution Theory
by Elise Davidson
Summary: Wherein Bernadette is drunk, the hamster wheel in Penny's head is running full throttle, and Sheldon wishes people would have more respect for clothing. CH18-Sheldon redefines, Penny comforts, and Leonard tries to play telephone. Replaced to fix a quick error .
1. The Height and Weight Correlation

Bernadette is good at hiding things.

She supposes it comes from the fact that she's always had to be the best actress ever to get past her mother (and when that stopped working, she decided to let loose the full brunt of her repressed hatred), and it's coming in handy more than ever these days. It's mostly when she realizes how much she has to hide from Howie's mother (though god bless him, Howie yells back just as much sometimes, but hell, it makes her teeth and brain vibrate, and sometimes, she just really wishes he'd get it over with and just _kill_ her already) that the bitter voice in her head has become her own mother incarnate.

But Bernadette's just shy of 5'1", and can't hold her liquor to save her life. She wasn't sure why she thought she could, but now the rum just tastes heavy and dark in the back of her throat, and she wipes the rim of the bottle off with her overly large shirt sleeve. Her face feels sticky with guttural anger, and she really just wants to call her best friend.

Her best friend.

She knows it's the liquor talking more than anything else, knows that her central nervous system is so depressed right now that a neuron wouldn't fire to let her know the quarantine bell had gone off even if it _wanted_ to, knows, knows, _knows_ that maybe…just _maybe_…she wouldn't care if the bell went off and she heroically got everyone out but herself.

Bernadette fingers the cross around her neck. Who was she kidding—it wouldn't be heroic, it would be suicide, but she's pretty sure no one would know her well enough to know that.

Besides, as much fun as Ebola and Marburg can be at times (_tricky, tricky, tricky bastards!_), MRSA is way more fun (every good microbiologist knows that). It's not even MRSA that she likes working with the best—it's influenza, type A.

Bernadette can appreciate virology; the buggers have been around since prehistoric times, and _still_ kill what's supposed to be the top species of the planet, and that's without taking into account their hardy abilities of evolution and mutation against the defenses of homo sapien.

Hysterically, Sheldon's voice is screaming in her head that perhaps _Homo Novus_ will find a way. She snorts, swatting the voice away with a mental hand, because if there was anyone who would fall victim to a virus, it'd be Sheldon—she still remembers what Penny told her as far as Sheldon being sick goes.

And there's Penny again.

Bernadette licks her lips, mostly because she's still trying to decide if she even _likes_ the taste of rum. Penny swears by tequila, Amy only touches liquor if Penny spikes her wine, and Howie…well, she doesn't drink with Howie for a lot of reasons.

The biggest reason of them all is she's afraid of how much will spill out of her, how much she's been pushing down, how much they have the potential to turn into their own parents—either a lonely old Jewish woman who has made her son _completely_ dependent upon her happiness, or a bitter, middle-aged Catholic couple who barely say goodnight to each other for fear of an argument erupting.

Bernadette swigs from the rum bottle directly. She's just as squeamish about microbes as Sheldon is; she supposes she's just better at hiding it. She's definitely better about hiding her rigid schedules and routines.

But really—when you're working with viruses that have mortality rates in the 90% range, it pays to be careful. Leonard works with lasers; Howie works with pneumatic presses and vacuums. Hell, Raj and Sheldon even occasionally work with radioactive substances just to study their decay rates and how the subatomic particles struggle apart before finding their sea of stability.

And that's not even counting all of the chemicals and sharp instruments that Amy works with. Bernadette's nose wrinkles instinctively, mostly because she recalls the smell of formalin that never quite leaves Amy's presence. She wonders if anyone ever notices it anymore.

Bernadette looks sluggishly at her phone. It's blinking with missed calls and texts; she frowns. She didn't text anyone, did she? She tugs her oversized sleeves up. The sweater was Penny's; she'd taken it after Amy threw up on Bernadette's cardigan after one too many appletinis one night (another reason that Bernadette doesn't always drink a lot; the running joke is that even Sheldon could probably hold his liquor better than Amy, and Sheldon once flashed an entire conference room full of people on wine alone).

She doesn't have much time to ponder it, because there's an insistent knocking on her door. She frowns; it's familiar.

Knock, knock, knock. "Bernadette." Knock, knock, knock. "Bernadette."

"_Sheldon_, you don't have to—" The rest of Penny's voice is drowned out.

Knock, knock, knock. "Bernadette." An exasperated sound breaks after that. "You could've dropped me off at Los Robles, you know."

"Not without taking Euclid Avenue, and you know it. Besides, _you're_ the one who just _had_ to go and get your special shampoo from Stuart!"

"He's the only one who _sells_ it; it does wonderful things for hair, I'll have you know." Another exasperated sigh. "Perhaps if you used it as well, your hair might get back that healthy sheen."

"Might what? Are you saying my hair looks—"

Penny stops talking as Bernadette opens the door, and doesn't bother to hide her emotions. The shorter girl is leaning heavily on the door for support, and her face is covered in tracked make-up and dark circles.

"Oh, sweetie, what's the matter? I got your text." Penny waves her phone around like a beacon.

Bernadette likes Penny, and hopefully shows it through a wobbly smile. Penny always smells like girly perfume instead of formalin, she doesn't smell like engine oil and brisket either. She's Penny.

"I texted you?" Bernadette asks owlishly.

Sheldon frowns in disapproval. "Clearly, someone's been imbibing the harder proof tonight," he sniffs, and Penny jabs him sharply.

Bernadette glares at Sheldon though. "You have a driver's license then, go."

Sheldon shuts up immediately at the idea of driving home from an unfamiliar place though, and meekly stands aside as Penny opens her phone.

"Are you okay? What's the matter?"

Penny's hands feel cool on Bernadette's face, or it might be the washcloth.

"I wasn't sure you really needed it, but you've never asked me to bring you liquor before, so here. It took longer than it should have because Dr. I-Need-My-Darth-Vader-Shampoo here saw me on my way out and decided it'd just be fantastic to ask for a ride."

Bernadette still hasn't said anything other than the earlier question. "I texted you?"

Sheldon snorts before he seems able to help it, and clasps his hand behind his back (he approves of the cleanliness of Bernadette's apartment though; he would expect nothing less from a microbiologist working with deadly diseases).

"It would seem that Bernadette has been testing her height and weight for alcohol tolerance," Sheldon offers, as if this might excuse Bernadette's obvious inebriation. "At approximately 1.52 meters and 61.23 kilograms, I'm given to think that her tolerance would be quite null. However, this does not take into account a biweekly dose of communal wine that I would think is common with a Catholic upbringing."

Bernadette blinks again. "Did you just call me short _and_ fat?" Her eyes are welling up with old insecurities before she can stop it.

"No!" Penny yelps, and glares at Sheldon, who looks like he has _no_ idea what he could have possibly said. "I mean, I don't think so?"

Bernadette can't help it; the numbers are already running through her alcohol-soaked brain. "You really think I weigh—" She turns and runs into her bathroom with a sob, unsure of what she even _texted_ Penny that would've made her come over without dropping Sheldon off first.

There's more voices she can't quite hear, but she can tell that Penny's angry and Sheldon's voice has gone from confused to something related to chagrined. Bernadette can't help it; a watery grin slips over her face, and she rubs at her reddened nose with the too-big-sleeve of Penny's bright sweatshirt.

She's about to come out too, and apologize for overreacting, when there's a knock on the door. Well, more precisely, a triple knock at the door, and her name interspersed between each one.

Just because she's _always_ wanted to though, she whips open the door before he can complete the knocking. His blue eyes are shifting at her, as if calculating whether or not she knew it would annoy him, and there's a flicker there that says he knows.

Or it might've been the smirk on her face that gave it away too, but she's drunk and lonely, and looking past him at Penny a little, who's looking at Sheldon, who's staring at his feet.

"Now, Sheldon," Penny scolds.

Sheldon glares at her, appears to want to hiss something out, but he turns back to Bernadette. "Penny has informed me that it's quite rude to guess at a woman's weight and then correlate it to her estimated alcohol tolerance, even though it's a _perfectly_ reasonable assumption to be able to make."

Bernadette frowns; she's not sure if that was supposed to be an apology or not. She's never been on the receiving end of being hurt by Sheldon, mostly because she's pretty sure she understands him almost better than anyone else does. It may've come from the large family, but Sheldon usually either reminds her of her little brother, Peter (that she always wanted to strangle), or of her lab partner in organic chemistry, Artie (she kind of wanted to strangle him too, at the time, but in a completely different way that makes her chest flush).

Sheldon isn't done though, and Bernadette suddenly realizes her skin is way too hot and tight as Sheldon's mouth keeps moving but she isn't hearing anything. She blinks at him just in time to tune in for the rest.

"—though I still need more data if I'm to make an accurate estimation of your current level of inebriation, and for that, I would like to know how much you've actually imbibed?"

Sheldon's blinking at her. Bernadette can hear glasses clinking in the kitchen; sounds like Penny's sick of the science-y talk; Bernadette can't say she blames her. Bernadette does enough of this at work every day; having Sheldon thrown into the mix just makes her life seem _sad_, but honestly, a lot of _that_ has to do with the fact that Howie won't stop asking her when they can dress up again.

Bernadette ignores the inadequacy that comes along with that, and accepts the glass from Penny while Sheldon starts talking _again_.

"_Penny_," Sheldon whines. "Do you _really_ think she needs that? She needs _sleep_, not more!"

Penny holds a finger up and tosses back directly from the bottle. "Unless you're going to slug some back too, sweetie, just stop."

Sheldon looks vaguely uncomfortable now. "Penny, if you start intoxicating yourself, you will not be able to drive us _home_, and we'll be stuck _here_, and I don't have my emergency bag. I can't—"

Sheldon's cut off, mostly because Bernadette has suddenly overcome her usual shyness in favor of alcohol-tinged bravery to poke Sheldon in the ribs.

"Howie left his full disc set of any and all Avengers-related movies," she offers, and is surprised at how strong her voice is.

Sheldon stiffens, as if considering, and then pins Bernadette with a condescending, calculating stare.

Penny recognizes it immediately; he's about to ask her something geeky about the Avengers movies to see if she knows enough. Penny groans inwardly and knocks back another shot, because _shit_, she needs to catch up to Bernadette, who's still swaying slightly where she's standing.

Is that her sweater?

Sheldon raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms as he steps nearer to Bernadette (Bernadette struggles to make her voice work, because by god, she was pretty sure that Penny was the only one who could pull off "predatory" in their entire group, and hell's bells, this is just _so wrong_).

"Which movies do you believe that particular franchise to include?"

Sheldon hears Penny cough a little on the next shot, but ignores it as he stares down Bernadette, who's wearing one of Penny's bright sweatshirts. She's currently stretching the fabric of the sleeve (he wishes she wouldn't do that, even if Penny doesn't seem to care) and darting her eyes from side to side as she shifts unsteadily from foot to foot.

Bernadette's about to answer when Sheldon makes a funny noise in his throat, and his eyes are like shards of chipped sapphire when his hand shoots out and grabs the wrist of the hand manipulating the fabric.

"You're stretching Penny's sweatshirt, and while she may have little respect for her clothing, as her best work friend, you should," Sheldon says stiffly, his long fingers wrapped around her tiny wrist. They aren't touching her skin, but her arm erupts into goosebumps all the same.

Bernadette realizes then, in her foggy mind, that she's _really_ drunk.

Penny's staring at them both, Bernadette realizes, and watches as her taller friend turns a rosy shade and downs another shot straight from the bottle. It makes Bernadette wonder, but Sheldon's grip tightens suddenly.

"You haven't answered my question; I'm assuming your level of intoxication is preventing you from registering queries as well as requests. I'm not above repeating myself," he sounds tired here, "But please cease stretching the fabric of Penny's sweatshirt, and which movies do you consider to be part of the Avenger's franchise?"

Bernadette swallows, and is grateful when Penny gives her the bottle. She drinks from it, tries to ignore the fact that if she pays enough attention, she can taste someone else's mouth on the bottle, and she doesn't hate it. She licks her lips, and notes with scientific eyes that something tics in Sheldon's mouth, as if he's just licked the back of his teeth in thought.

This is all before she points out to Sheldon that while both Iron Man movies, Captain America, and Thor are considered definitely Avengers' franchise, that the Eric Bana movie shouldn't be counted on account of its utter banality, and the Ed Norton version only counts a little because Tony Stark was briefly in it.

Sheldon seems to be satisfied with this answer though, and he begins picking things off the coffee table and rearranging in preparation to find a "spot" within Bernadette's apartment.

While he's doing this, Bernadette finally gets a moment alone with Penny in the kitchen. Penny's green eyes are bright and dilated; Bernadette finds her stomach warm at the thought that those signs are classic earmarks of arousal, or, at the very least, deep thought (something Penny isn't exactly prone to doing).

"You're thinking," Bernadette says, and isn't embarrassed of the way the words slur.

Penny licks her lips visibly in thought though; Bernadette can practically hear the hamster running. "Stay out of my brain, Bernadette."

With that, Penny suddenly hugs her. It's not weird for Penny to hug people, especially friends. What is weird is the way she hangs on a little too tightly and a little too long, and her hands deftly skim over Bernadette's shoulders before she goes to tell Sheldon that Ed Norton is hot enough that they should include his version of the Hulk in the franchise.

Bernadette takes a seat on her couch. She thinks she should be annoyed that Penny is bickering with Sheldon instead of making her talk, but she isn't—Sheldon's analytical voice is soothing, in its own way, and Penny—_her_ best friend, Bernadette thinks a little contritely—is bantering right back to everything Sheldon has to say.

It's when Penny settles down beside of her to let Sheldon continue that Bernadette remembers how earlier, the only thing really in her mind was the delicacy of the icosahedral-shaped Influenza A virus, the shrillness and irritation at Howie, the sudden and abrupt anger at Amy.

It all makes sense now. Penny has evolved to match them a little, or at least enough to hold her own in an argument against _Sheldon_ about which movies are included in the Avengers' franchise. Sheldon has evolved a bit to match Penny's sheer entropy, her amount of chaos, her whirldwind life that is full of disorder and heat.

Bernadette feels the flush adorn her chest again, and she twists the sleeves of the hoodie (Penny's sweatshirt; it smells like vanilla and mint) in her tiny hands. Sheldon's asking her to move; she does so because some part of her actually wants him to stay right now.

Penny settles beside of her on the other side, all loose-limbed and seeming unaware. Sheldon's on Bernadette's other side, rigid as a stone as the opening credits of Iron Man come on.

Bernadette licks the back of her own teeth, and she swears she can taste something other than rum and her own guilt at how wrong, wrong, _wrong_ everything is right now.

But then Tony Stark comes on, and Sheldon relaxes a little. Penny's hand lands on her knee as they both reach forward for the rum bottle.

Sheldon glares at them, but is asking Penny if she would make him some tea.

Penny runs her tongue over her teeth thoughtfully as she gets up and puts the water on to boil. Vaguely, Sheldon and Bernadette are talking about different medias with which to grow bacteria. Bernadette's arguing for something salt-related, and Sheldon's talking about goddamn _blood_.

Penny tips vodka into the tea cup as the water boils. Something's happening here, she knows it. She can see the guilt lining Bernadette's face, can see the utter curiosity and terror in Sheldon's. She can feel the excitement and intrigue pulsing throughout her own body.

Which is why she makes the decision to go ahead and give Sheldon the tea spiked with the vodka. She's a part-time bartender; vodka is for spiking.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	2. The Morning After Never Redundancy

It's the type of hangover where Penny is pretty sure she's still drunk. She's not looking forward to the late night bartender shift, but it's still easier than the waitressing. As least with bartending, she can sort of connect with more people on a more personable basis. It makes the tips better. It's also easier because she doesn't feel like that poor, struggling actress trying to make it in southern California, just being a waitress till she gets her break.

Penny groans with her thoughts, and tries to remember the previous night. She can't. A lot of it is blurred out, thanks to her old friend, Ron Llave. She groans a little, turns her head into the cool pillow. It feels good on her skin, mostly because she's not entirely sure how terrible she feels yet.

It takes her a minute to register that someone's groaned beside of her, and that she's not alone in the bed. Her stomach quivers quickly, mostly because the only two people in the apartment last night were Sheldon and Bernadette. It wouldn't be horrible if it were Bernadette, save the raunchy comments they might endure from Howard.

Penny realizes almost instantly that she's not wearing a bra, which comes with the delayed reaction that her underwear is missing too. Yeah, the comments from Howard would be—well, verbal guy-porn at best, but still something she could deal with and throw away.

It's not as bad if it were Sheldon though. If it's Sheldon, then Penny knows, knows, _knows_ she's going to have to put up with that goddamn kicked-puppy look on Leonard's face for god-knows-how-long, and honestly…honestly? She's sort of tired of feeling guilty every time Leonard's imagined some horrible slight. It's already been making their beta-test sort of exhausting, but she wants to give it a shot because she's not getting any younger, and underneath the bratty behavior, Leonard has potential.

With a great sigh, Penny decides to expend the energy required to roll over and see who, exactly, she'd ended up with. Her eyebrow rises worriedly when she realizes Bernadette was curled against her, her tiny hands clutching a bit in the material of her tank. Penny concentrates most now on regulating her breathing patterns; if Bernadette's as scientific as the others, she'd wake if she realized there was a break in the pattern.

For some reason, Penny feels panic at that.

What isn't strange at all is how Penny curls her arms closer around Bernadette. It's then that she realizes Bernadette's wearing nothing from the waist up. Penny can't keep her breath steady at _all_, but Bernadette's in the realm of rum-hangover, and clearly responding to nothing.

Penny sucks in hard, wonders if Sheldon's nearby. She doesn't see him right off, and she leans back a bit to study Bernadette's state of dress as well as her own. Penny herself is definitely not wearing _any_ underwear, but she's still wearing the tank, shorts, and boots she'd had on last night—she's only missing the bra and panties. Bernadette, on the other hand, is wearing a simple pair of thin pajama shorts that Penny thinks look familiar, and _nothing_ else.

Penny feels her pulse quicken, feels the itch in her fingers, feels the urge in her arms. She relents the smallest amount by allowing her arms to circle Bernadette's waist and pull her closer. Bernadette groans a little, falling further into Penny's chest.

It's when Bernadette's smaller mouth runs just the smallest bit on Penny's collarbone that Penny knows she needs to get out, needs to leave, needs to run before anyone else wakes up, because Bernadette's mouth on her skin should _not_ feel that good—especially since Bernadette's still asleep, and more than likely thinks she's in bed with Howard.

Penny grunts a little when Bernadette's soft lips skim over the skin on her clavicle, and her arms unconsciously tighten around the small frame in the bed. She shakes her head violently once, as if to shake herself away though, and jerks back.

Wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

There's a pair of bleary blue eyes before Bernadette mumbles something, and turns over sharply.

Penny, still hungover and a bit drunk, sucks in her breath at the abject rejection she'd seen on Bernadette's face before the smaller woman had turned away. Like...

Well, like Penny would kick her out in the light of day. Penny's just shy of being angry, and wonders if Howard's kicked her out before to avoid whatever debacle might arise with his mother.

It made Penny feel sick enough to get to her feet and start heading for the bathroom. However, she's only made it halfway to the door when she trips and hits the ground.

Penny turns back irritably to find what she's tripped over, and nothing escapes her mouth as Sheldon comes into view. He's asleep on the floor, lying in his usual wrapped position, but looking much more restless. He's not wearing either of his usual two shirts—instead, he's lying as topless as Bernadette in the floor with only a pillow beneath his head and a blanket beneath his body. She hisses—Sheldon's as pale as Bernadette is, with the sparsest hint of brown chest hair. His hands are curled into his chest, as if for protection, and as Penny tries to get up, those blue eyes are trained blearily on her.

Penny makes an odd sound that's sort of between a squeak and a groan, but she can't form any words because seriously, she so doesn't enough energy to deal with Sheldon's neurotic freaking out any more than she can deal with her own. She scrambles backwards on all fours before bumping into the foot of Bernadette's bed.

The small, high-pitched groan makes Penny turn her head too fast, and her stomach rolls in warning. Penny takes a deep breath, struggles to calm herself.

It's with that very same calmness that she takes off out the door, texting Leonard and Raj that Sheldon needs a ride, and she can't because she's gotten called into work early.

The lie tastes like ash in her mouth, and it's been a while since she didn't have someone to talk to about problems like this. Penny sighs as she gets into her car, leans her forehead against the steering wheel. She supposes she could bring it up with Amy…

But then Amy would go off on tangents about how in most primate tribes, it was perfectly natural—common, even—for the leader of the females to pair-bond and carry on with the other females in the tribe, and Penny thumps her head against the steering wheel because she can't believe she actually _remembered_ something like that.

Penny groans again, looks out the window, but no one's coming out of Bernadette's apartment building. She doesn't know if she's relieved or not.

She also doesn't know if it counts as a walk of shame if you can't remember what you're supposed to be ashamed of. She starts the car all the same, and decides she'll try and jog her memory later.

There's a tiny voice then, one so quiet she can barely hear it, that points out how _not_ terrible it would be if something did happen.

Penny frowns. Sheldon has an eidetic memory. Perhaps she'll grill him later, though if the bloodshot color of his eyes had been any indication, that might be a dead end too. She's irritable now, fighting a hangover, and knows that rum is strong on her breath.

A shower will make her feel more human, brush her teeth, put on clean clothes that don't smell of stale alcohol and talcum powder and bleach.

Penny frowns, barely avoiding a cyclist who pops into view on her remaining side mirror. She pulls over, because her hands are starting to shake and her stomach is rolling worse than before. She's not a homewrecker, not that kind of "other" woman, she's not that horrible a person—

Is she?

She tells herself that it was an accident that she forgot her phone, and that she didn't remember until she was already at work.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette is the last to wake, and she finds her apartment empty. The part of her that hasn't shut up since fifth grade asks her if she's really surprised at that. The part of her that's grown up and thinks she should know better is flatly indignant that she's got a hangover, and holy St. Pete, rum is _not_ her friend.

It's the part of her that secretly wishes her parents would just get divorced already that squawks that she's _naked_ from the waist up, and briskets on buns, what did she _do_ last night?

Bernadette groans; there's no one else in the place, so Sheldon and Penny must've already trudged out. She turns, and finds a glass of water and a painkiller bottle sitting on her nightstand. She's a little touched, mostly because the last time she'd gone drinking with Howie, the most she'd gotten the next morning was a nudge and a cackle about how wild they'd gotten the night before, and—

For the love of everything sweet and holy, is this her _life_?

The water, she knew, would have been Penny; Bernadette recognizes the painkiller as naproxen sodium, and knows that must've been Sheldon, because Sheldon would've taken into account that her liver probably needed a break and it wouldn't do well to give her ibuprofen to process in addition to the last of the alcohol.

Bernadette sighs again, and finally shifts around in the bed to start moving. Her skin has gone red with the realization that yes, she really is naked save the pair of pajama shorts she'd stolen from Penny a long time ago. It's a little more disturbing that she doesn't have anything on beneath those.

Bernadette sighs, pushes her hair off her face, and sets her lips into a determined line. No use lying about in bed and bemoaning the fact that rum serves no one well in the mornings, and leans down to grab the first article of clothing from the floor.

She doesn't expect it to be Sheldon's Green Lantern tee, and drops it as if she's been burned. She stares at it for a minute, nudging it with a toe. He must've been in a hurry to get out.

The self-pity floods in then, and she resolutely picks it up, along with Penny's sweatshirt, and shoves both of them as far back into her closet as she can manage. A shaky sigh weaves from her chest and mouth, and she leans her back against the wall, sliding down until she's curled into herself on the floor.

This is bad, bad, _bad_. She knows as well as anyone else that hiding from your problems will solve nothing. Shoving them into the back of a closet doesn't exactly solve them either, but honestly, she's more than a little hungover and curled into a ball in her bedroom.

Bernadette hardly means for it to trigger a memory, and it doesn't, precisely, but it does remind her of how she used to hide away from her parents to escape babysitting the gaggle of younger siblings, how she would crouch in her locker so the taller, meaner girls wouldn't shove her in said-locker themselves.

It's when she realizes her eyes are wet that Bernadette snaps her head up and wipes her face. She's not that person anymore; she refuses to be.

Resolutely, she uncurls from the floor and heads for the shower. She turns the water as hot as she can stand it, and struggles to imagine all of the bad feelings washing away.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon opts to walk, because it'll give him time to clear his head. His nose is already protesting the pollen count, and the wind is sharp in his face and smells of ozone. He acknowledges more that he couldn't find his Green Lantern shirt than he does the weather though, and his hands remain clasped behind his back as he meanders down the sidewalk.

The air is humid, and it makes him frown because it's making his skin feel gritty and swollen. He really wants a shower, really want to change his clothing into something that doesn't feel like its molding itself to his body from how long he's been wearing it.

Well, his pants and briefs at the very least, because he'd woken up without either of his shirts.

Sheldon grimaces; if it hadn't been for Penny's inherent clumsiness, it would've been entirely possible that he wouldn't have woken up before the two girls in the room. He remembers steadfastly refusing to sleep on the couch, remembers Bernadette bumping into things, her back distractingly bare as she tossed a pillow and plushy blanket at him for the floor.

His skin is coloring; it feels a little tighter and stretched as he remembers Penny's hands skimming over Bernadette's shoulders, Bernadette's high-pitched giggles as they made for the window.

Sheldon shakes his head once sharply to clear it again. Seriously, it wasn't _his_ idea for Penny to relive her glory days of being a high school queen bee by showing Bernadette how they used to use bras as slingshots to aim whatever was handy for the teacher's cars.

Sheldon winces, because his shirt feels stiff on his skin without something beneath it. It had been completely their fault when said-slingshot went a bit awry (really, was he that surprised? Bernadette was a microbiologist, not a physicist, and while Penny had decent sharpshooting skills, that meant nothing based on her alcohol intoxication) and pelted him with a water balloon (well, a water-filled latex glove, but the principal still applied).

He scratches at his collarbone with a sweep of his fingers, wishing he were home already so he could change clothes, get back to a routine…

Take massive OTC painkillers for the small marching band blaring out "Jesus Loves Me" in his head. The lead singers sound and look suspiciously like his mother and Missy, and the words aren't so much "Jesus Loves Me" as they are "Jesus loves me until I have a hangover and then He hates me".

Sheldon unclasps his hands when he finally gets to the apartment, and makes a beeline for his room before anyone can realize he's home and slept somewhere other than his bed and in his standard Saturday-night pajamas. Leonard's not home though, and Sheldon's beginning to understand what the aphorism "Walk of shame" means. This is precisely why he chooses not to drink; people do funny things when they're drunk.

It occurs to him then that Leonard's not home because it's Paintball Sunday. Sheldon grimaces, his mind already struggling to churn out excuses and reasons for why he wasn't there, where he was last night, what was he doing, who was he with—

Sheldon can't make his mind stop. Sometimes, especially times like now, he wishes he could. But he's not into overdrive yet, so he opts for the shower. It's not time for one, but he's reasonably certain that if he doesn't wash away the broken rules of last night, he might just break himself.

His mind kicks into hyperspace when he realizes his pockets aren't empty, and the memory is as clear as day, because among soaking his shirt with poorly-aimed water-filled-latex-gloves, it had turned into a complete and utter chaotic fight of who could hit whom with the most water.

Sheldon had opted to cower behind Bernadette's couch as Penny won, and the creature of habit in Sheldon couldn't let things lie in the floor.

Which is probably how he had ended up with two sets of underthings in his pockets.

He tells himself it's the hot water that makes his skin flush. Sheldon's not a good liar though, even in the privacy of his own mind, and when he's finally washed away the hangover and feels a little more normal (at the very least, clean), he throws routine out the window and grabs his bus pants with a resigned sigh.

There were equations and proofs to reconcile, and the apartment across the hall (and now the one four streets down and three blocks across) were like twin gamma bursts, struggling to showcase the fact that black holes do exist while shooting their lights across the universe.

Sheldon was absolutely certain that Feynman, Hawking, and Newton never had to deal with this. Dear lord, even Schrödinger just had the one cat, and it was only ever alive or dead.

His mind has refused to stop though, and even with his whiteboards in front of him and the familiar scent of dry-erase markers numbing his olfactory senses, he still can't make it slow down.

He really wishes he could.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	3. The Subterfuge Anomaly

It's been a week now since what Penny's dubbed "the incident", and she's managed to fill the majority of it with back-to-back shifts that have her feet aching miserably and her head pounding worse than the rum hangover of the morning in question. She knows she can't keep pushing herself this hard, and had to physically swallow against the guilt when Howard came by with her cell phone.

He had been more than a little curious, though Penny wasn't blind enough to not see the utter confusion as well—why wouldn't Bernadette just bring it herself?

Penny had said thank you and shuffled him out of the restaurant with barely another word. She'd then pulled as many favors as she could to trade off her Tuesday night (she was _never_ going to get another Friday off, at least not for the rest of the year). She tells herself it's because just this once, she doesn't want to have to take their orders and feel like the stupid one.

Penny's an excellent liar, especially in her own head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette trudges up the stairs of the apartment building, trailing reluctantly behind Howard, who's going on about the space program all over again. The nasty voice in her mind that sounds like her mother is wondering if he'll even make it through training, but she tells that voice to take a hike. She _loves_ Howie; she's happy for him, she's scared for him. She's going to marry him, but she's still going to have her career.

That nasty voice never quite goes away though, and asks her if Howie's mother's going to be there every step of the way, at least, until she dies and then Bernadette gets to take over all of the tasks the Mrs. Wolowitz does for her son.

Bernadette shakes her head sharply, and they round the corner of the second floor. Howie's still going on to a mute Raj, who hasn't said anything since they met him outside of the building. Raj only offers her his usual smile, the sweet one that almost makes her forget that he knows way more about decent skin care and fashion than she does.

It only makes her miss Penny, but even after she'd had Howie take Penny's phone to her, Bernadette's heard nothing from the blonde girl. Bernadette doesn't lie; her feelings are pretty hurt. But she also knows that the message is loud and clear—

_Leave me alone_.

Bernadette almost can't blame her—after all, when you wake up in a bed next to a ridiculously elf-like (and not in the good Arwen-elf way), topless girl and a gangly mantis in the floor (it's mortifying, but she remembers tossing Sheldon a blanket and pillow, remembers the way his eyes lifted at how Penny's hands skimmed her shoulders, how his hands gave a twitchy sort of movement, as if he were stopping himself—_no, no, no_), she can see how Penny would be freaked out enough to bolt out the door.

Lost enough in her own council, she fails to realizes they've reached 4A and bumps into Howie's back on the fourth floor. He's looking at her expectantly, and she wonders when she stopped thinking that eager-puppy-look was cute.

Bernadette pastes on her best apologetic smile, the one that goes for sweet and dumb at the same time. "I was just thinking about some viruses I want to work with later in my career, Howie. What were you saying?"

She ignores the irritation that he doesn't ask which ones.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny looks up when the knock comes on the door. It's not Sheldon's knock (the one she's sure he's going to patent), but it doesn't sound like Bernadette either (Bernadette's a quiet knocker). She sighs and heads to the door.

Of course she knows it's Halo night—but she didn't confirm or deny her expected presence (well, it _is_ Halo night, just like it has been for the past 4 years). She looks through the peephole of the door cautiously.

It's Leonard.

Penny sighs, hating the expectant look on his face, the slight swagger in his stance since they started their beta-test. She opens the door anyway though, hoping she looks suitably tired, given that her make-up had been washed off an hour ago and she's wearing her ugliest pajamas (she didn't do that on purpose, no…she just…she's run out of clean, cutesy ones is all).

Leonard takes in her attire quickly. "That time, huh?" he chirps nervously.

It's not, and Penny wants to smack him for the clueless assumption. Instead, she's grateful for the excuse, and leans against her door. "Yeah…I'm just really tired, sweetie. Maybe next week?"

"Sheldon won't like it," Leonard rolls his eyes good-naturedly, but Penny's a little tired of the way most of Leonard's jokes revolve around Sheldon's rigid routines. "Bernadette and Amy are over, maybe you could freshen up and get out? It might make you feel better."

Penny shakes her head though, and muffles the burbling irritation that she should freshen up. "I appreciate it, honey…I do. But I've been working doubles all week, and I'm really just kind of tired."

Leonard frowns suddenly at that, and Penny wants to shoot her own foot. "Really? Because we didn't see you on Tuesday. Alice said you'd traded off that night."

"Alice is like...60 years old; she can barely remember how to write her own name sometimes," Penny waved him off, and hoped that her irritation would get him to back off. "I think I'm just gonna go lie down."

Penny kisses him quickly, and this seems to pacify him. She shuts her door and waits to hear Leonard go back into his own apartment. He does, saying something on the way, and a part of her wonders if he'll make jokes about Sheldon just for something to laugh at, what he must say about her when she's not around.

Penny leans against her door and slides down until she's in the floor. Her memory's come back in snatches of the evening, precluding her from having to ask Sheldon what really went on, and now she's a little glad, because she's pretty sure he'd spontaneously combust on the spot (_what—she reads_).

Don't get her wrong; there was no drunken, accidental sex between anyone (why is she disappointed when she thinks that?), but still…having water fights at 4 in the morning and losing your underwear and finding excuses to touch one of your best girlfriends all night…well, it's all enough to make her head spin the next morning.

She's always thought Bernadette was cute in her own tiny way, the same way she thinks Angelina Jolie is hotter than any woman has a right to be. Penny doesn't swing that way, despite Amy's best attempts to assure her that it's perfectly natural and okay to experiment.

Penny's experimented; hell, half of her relationship with Kurt was _full_ of experimentation, just because she knew it made him happy (it took her a while to realize he was banging both of them and it was just an excuse). No, her head's not spinning because she'd felt something sparky every time she got a hand across Bernadette's pale, smooth skin.

Well, it was half that. The other half was a 6-feet-plus, gangly mess of OCD with blue eyes she'd kill herself just to drown in.

Penny groans against her knees, thumps her head against the door. It had to have been all the liquor. Hell, even Sheldon had been blitzed by the end of the night, if his eyes turning the color of blue flame had been any indication (god, what had Bernadette said once they'd curled on the bed that night…something about the perfect flame on a Bunsen burner, jesus, they were turning her _geek_).

The thump must've been louder than she thought, or Sheldon really couldn't abide any other changes or disruptions to his routines, because the next thumps weren't her head, but Sheldon knocking on her door.

"Go away, Sheldon. Not in the mood."

What comes out next is unexpected. "Nobody likes liars, Penny."

Penny whips open the door at that. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Sheldon looks at her disapprovingly. "Leonard informed us that you would not be attending Halo night, owing to your monthly cycle. Unless you've acquired the ability to have it biweekly, you are lying."

Penny glares at him, because god dammit, he shouldn't _know_ that about her. "How the hell do you know?"

Sheldon gives her a condescending look; the one that always makes her either want to kick him or show him how important biological imperatives can be. "Penny, I've lived across the hallway from you for over three years. Additionally, with the acquisition of other females that have come along with your company, it is easy enough to deduce the monthly timeline as all the female species tends to sync up when in close company—"

"No, no, _no_, Sheldon!" Penny snaps at him, and steps back to slam the door shut. She's brutally aware of the way he's looking at her, and feels her wrist jerk painfully when he stops the door abruptly from shutting. "What the hell? When someone slams a door in your face, that means for you to go away."

Sheldon's still staring at her though. "Your presence is needed for Halo night; I will not have my kill shots tarnished on account of being forced to partner with any of the inadequate players across the hall." His eyes narrowed, and by god, her knees are actually shaking a little (makes her glad her hands are still on the door and jamb because her knuckles are white from gripping it so they don't tremble).

"Your kill shots will recover," Penny bites out. "Now _go. Away_."

But Sheldon doesn't let go of the door. He doesn't close in on her either, though the way his gaze is angrily staring her down, he might as well have. "Do you require Bernadette perhaps to persuade you otherwise?" he asks, and his voice is tight with holding back.

Penny blinks at him; Sheldon's not capable of subterfuge. She stares him incredulously though, her green eyes wide and slightly dilated in anger. Her fingers curl tighter around the door in warning, and she _does_ lean into his personal space. He hisses in fear, leaning back slightly. His hands twitch as if he wants to protect himself, but they don't move.

"That would depend," she says, and her voice is like ice.

Sheldon's olfactory senses are buzzing; it's triggering memories faster than he can bury them, and his fingers itch for a whiteboard. "And what does it depend on? I don't operate on the ambiguities, Penny." His voice is as hard as hers.

"That depends on whether or not you want to watch or join in next time," she says slowly, and doesn't bother to ignore the way the fire in her stomach has erupted into sudden and full-blown arousal at the way Sheldon's nostrils flare, and his breathing pattern catches in his throat.

"What are you two doing?"

Sheldon's face colors and Penny looks past him to see a disapproving Amy standing there. If Penny looks further, she can see Bernadette sitting tightly beside of Howard on the couch. The smaller girl looks tense and even a little bit angry past the smile.

Penny wonders how many times she's missed that look on Bernadette's face.

"Are you two fighting again?" Amy asks, and her voice is scolding as she walks briskly over. "You know, when the monkeys fight in their cages, a time out is sometimes effective. Do you both require time-outs?"

"No, Sheldon was just leaving," Penny replies, and the chilly weariness of her voice surprises her. "I'm not coming for Halo night; you know he hates it when he has to lose."

Amy nods enthusiastically. "Very much so. It usually requires a new comic to pull him out of it once he's lost." She looks disappointed though that Penny's not coming. "Are you sure? Bernadette and I can come over, if you wish. You know we're only here to support the menfolk's testosterone war."

Penny almost laughs a little, and Sheldon looks like he could kill someone. "Pissing contest, Amy. That's what it is."

Amy shrugs, as if the difference doesn't matter. "Well, it's settled then. Let me just go get Bernadette."

"No!" Penny says, and the sharpness of her tone makes everyone in 4A look up, and great, now _everyone_ is staring.

It's quite possibly Sheldon and Bernadette's stares that make her feel the worst.

"I have a really bad headache," she finally says, and she knows its weak, but she doesn't know if she can stand being in the same room with either one of them right now.

Amy pouts a little. "Well, come on, Sheldon. Can't let my beautiful bestie force herself through a night of loud noises and flashing lights when she's experiencing a dilation of the vessels in her cranium." She gives Penny a tight hug. "Feel better, bestie!"

Penny bites her lower lip between her teeth; Bernadette's smile has faded completely and is now just shy of full-blown rage, and Sheldon's looking more and more murderous by the second.

Shit, this has got to _stop_.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette shakes Howie's concerns off quickly, and excuses herself to the restroom. She must be letting her usual cheery face slip; she knows it is. But honestly, she was Penny's friend _first_, even if it was just a work-related friendship. Bernadette has friends—well, lab partners at the very least. She doesn't hang out with them much anymore, not since she became so wrapped up in Howie's life, and, as a result, everyone else's. She likes it a little though, because it's not virus talk all the time.

Bernadette washes her hands quickly, and pushes down the anger. She loves Amy, she does—Amy's one of their group, one of the girls. But still—she can't help the jealousy that comes up whenever Amy starts going on about besties and forcing her way into deep friendships that normally takes months and years to cultivate.

Bernadette's known Penny for two years now, it isn't fair that Amy gets to be Penny's bestie and then wants to be Bernadette's as well.

She sighs, grips the sides of the sink. She could feel the anger rolling off of Sheldon in waves, though it was difficult to tell what it was because of. She's not about to ask either, because if she's going to tackle the awkwardness there, she darn well wants her and Penny to be on the same page so they can double against him.

Which means going over to Penny's.

Bernadette's hardly stupid, after all; Penny's lying through her teeth and she's been avoiding everyone for the past week. She's just going to have to bite the bullet and force her way into Penny's, maybe take a page out of Amy's book.

Bernadette swings her hair off her shoulders a bit, and stares at her face in the mirror. She looks a little lost, and the lines of tension are still there. She straightens herself up, and quickly decides that Penny could use an OTC painkiller; a trial version they've been passing around at work (that Bernadette doesn't actually have, but hey; it'll get her out of this apartment and into Penny's).

With that in mind, Bernadette wipes her hands off on the towel and squirts some hand sanitizer into her hand as she exits the bathroom. She doesn't expect Sheldon to be standing there, his eyes narrowed and his figure slightly hunched. He's not glaring—well, it might be glaring to anyone else, but Bernadette knows different.

She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing really comes out. He's staring at her, and his hands are twitching the way they had been that fateful night a week ago. She almost wishes that night had never happened now, wishes that everything could just be normal again.

Normal would mean beating down her emotions until they don't show anymore. She doesn't know that she wants that again.

Sheldon's still staring at her though, and she's certain he hasn't spoken. His eyes fall to where her fingers have unconsciously started twisting a bit of the fabric of her dark cardigan. The annoyance briefly drifts across his features, and her hands automatically stop.

"Excuse me; you're in my way."

Bernadette jumps at the suddenness of his request, and she steps to the side. Her fingers are already subconsciously reaching up to pull at the fabric again. It's a nervous habit she's never quite been able to break, and his eyes note it again.

It's when his hands twitch and one of them actually reaches up in a jerky, stuttered motion that Bernadette scoots quickly back down the hall without saying a word. It's awkward getting out, and insisting to Amy that she won't be but a few minutes, and yes, she'll text her if Penny decides she wants that girls' night after all.

Bernadette sighs heavily as she closes the door, and the familiar sounds of violence fill the space behind her. She squares her shoulders though and knocks gently on Penny's door.

She's half expected Penny to yell something irritable through the door, but Penny just opens it. Bernadette bites her lip a little; Penny looks no better than she or Sheldon.

"You guys just won't quit, will you," Penny states more than asks, and Bernadette's a little worried at how tired her friend sounds.

Bernadette shuts the door behind her though, and plants herself firmly in Penny's way. "Penny, this is silly," she finally gets out, and is a little proud of how steady her voice is. "I mean, come on—you were super-popular in high school, this kind of thing just kind of happens sometimes; I'm sure you know better than me. It didn't really mean anything, and it's embarrassing, but it's the fun kind of embarrassing where we'll joke about it in a few weeks and forget all about it."

She hates how she's started rambling, and Penny's just kind of staring at her, and it makes her wish that she hadn't said anything at all.

It's when Penny's hands suddenly twitch the same way Sheldon's had that Bernadette backs up a little, and her heart jumps into her throat to pound a beat she's only somewhat familiar with, owing to Howie's somewhat disappointing lack of expertise in the bedroom.

Penny shuffles back towards her. "If it was just some stupid night, if it was just some embarrassing thing we'll joke around about and forget about later, why does it feel like something changed?"

Penny's obviously picking her words carefully, because her voice is stilted and a little jarring. Bernadette shrugs, looking up at her friend with confusion and hurt.

Bernadette picks the high road and attempts to do what's best for all parties involved. "Nothing changed," she says lightly, and Penny's _much_ better at reading voices and people than anyone else in their group, because honestly—even Bernadette doesn't believe herself.

Penny sighs tiredly, and her fingers tic again. "I'm really tired, Bernadette. I'll call you later?" She opens the door, brushing past the shorter girl and closing her eyes.

"Will you actually call me later?" Bernadette asks, and the lightness is absent from her usually cheerful voice. "Or do I get to hear your usual excuses when you're trying to avoid everyone?"

Penny looks a little surprised at the sudden chilly tone, and her eyes show it.

Bernadette shifts a little. "I may not have been as popular as you," she says carefully, and knows she's treading on thin ice, "But I still know when someone's avoiding me." The hurt is in her tone now, and she hates that Penny can hear it.

Penny squeezes her eyes shut though, grits her teeth a little. "Yes, I will call you."

Bernadette walks out, turns to ask something else, but Penny's door is already closed. She sighs—maybe this weekend, she'll go for the vodka instead.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I think so far, my favorite part of this story has been where Sheldon asked Penny if she required Bernadette's persuasion to come over for Halo. Pretty sure if I were Penny, I would've exploded.


	4. The Metacarpal Malfunction

It's not vodka, but then again, Penny hadn't offered any excuses when she'd called Bernadette up the following Saturday and asked if she wanted to come hang out since Amy was at a departmental conference symposium to represent the neurobiological department. Her monkey had gone with her as evidence of some of the work she was doing.

Bernadette shifts from foot to foot, and she has her fingers playing with the rouched sleeve of her cardigan. She doesn't turn her head towards 4A, because first and foremost, she and Penny need to fix this. She resolutely pulls her hand away from her cardigan and knocks briefly on the door. Her other hand holds things that Penny had asked her to pick up at the supermarket.

She's never sworn she had excellent ears, not like some overly-neurotic, overly tall people she knows, but that doesn't mean she's deaf either, and so when the door to 4A creaks open slightly, Bernadette does turn.

Sheldon's holding his basket of laundry, and looking at the bag in her hand as if judging the weight, and interpreting what's in it as a result. "You know, as a scientist, I would think you'd know better than the regular layman how destructive the overindulgence of alcohol can be."

Bernadette has to hold back something hateful, she really does, because Sheldon's got that condescending look on his face, the one he hides behind because he wants to ask something else, but some part of his brain actually knows better. She's almost ready to call him on it, but Penny's opened the door and is staring warily between the two of them.

Wordlessly, Penny pulls Bernadette in, and glares at Sheldon. "Remember, moonpie. Either watch or play, don't sit on the fence."

Sheldon's cheeks color just enough for Bernadette to make them out. "I hardly understand the innuendo of what you're attempting to say, Penny, but then again, what intelligent person does?" He turns sharply and starts heading down the stars.

Penny rolls her eyes and shuts the door, only to find Bernadette looking somewhat irritated. "What's got in your panties?" she asks breezily, going for cheerful.

"I could've told him that myself, you know."

"I wasn't trying to protect you," Penny replies, and starts fishing through the bag that she's taken off of Bernadette's hands. "He's been asking for it since Halo night."

Bernadette hops up on the stool by Penny's bar. "He called you stupid."

Penny puts the vodka bottle down harder than she means to. "What else is new." She puts the rum bottle next to it, and pulls out her blender as well. "Daquiris or Pythons?"

"Python?" Bernadette asks, because she's never heard of that one.

"It's a liquored-up monster they give you at Rainforest Café," Penny says, though a lot of the mischief is missing from her smile. "Seriously; this is thing will blow your face off."

"I don't know that a drink that can blow your face off is legal," Bernadette offers, and Penny looks up at the deadpan of her tone, but then recognizes the slight humor in the quirk of her smile. "You know you're not stupid."

Penny shrugs. "Some people are born to be stupid so smart people can feel smarter." She pulls out two tall glasses; fills them with ice almost mechanically. She pulls out miscellaneous bottles as well as a shaker glass she nicked from the Cheesecake Factory because she actually sort of likes mixing drinks. "It just so happens that I'm one of the ones here so people can tell their kids what not to grow into."

The self-pity is new, Bernadette thinks, and watches Penny's deft hands mix together different liquors and juices. "If you really think that, you're dumber than Sheldon gives you credit for," Bernadette points out. "There's all sorts of smarts, Penny, and you know you're smarter than all of us in a lot of ways."

"Bullying the smart kids because I couldn't catch up to them in high school isn't a smart that I'm proud of," Penny points out, and shakes the first glass of green-yellow liquid into the shaker. She pours it out with ease, fingers moving and catching against glass and liquid as she finishes it off with a garnish of lemon. "Try it."

Penny's already mixing her own as Bernadette sips it cautiously. Oh, there's a _lot_ of liquor in this drink, and it tastes like it has none. Bernadette eyes it surreptitiously, noting Penny's smirk. She finally returns it with a smile of her own, and wonders if maybe—just maybe—they can fix whatever's in Penny's head, whatever's clawing at Bernadette's throat.

It'll take more liquor then what they're working on though, and Bernadette's a little glad Penny had her stop at the grocery store.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon doesn't realize how vicious his movements are while folding clean clothes until he accidentally catches his hand in the flip-fold, and a light purple bruise starts to erupt over his knuckles. He winces and grimaces, but Amy's in LA, and Penny's got Bernadette in her apartment up the stairs, and a voice that sounds remarkably like the robot from Lost in Space is screaming "Danger, Sheldon Cooper, Danger, Danger!" if he even thinks about—to use a colloquial aphorism—"crashing that party".

He soothes his sore hand by calculating his movements and exerting as much control over them as possible. It means his folding schedule is now off, and slower than what he would normally do. The efficiency of the routine is lost, but not the desire to continue the schedule.

Sheldon grimaces, though if anyone else were nearby, it would be difficult to tell it apart from his normal glare. His hand is aching, and he still has sheets in the dryer. Leonard's back to night shifts at the university to avoid Leslie but still keep with his experiments. Raj was with him, but only because Raj's other option for his Saturday night was helping Howard shop for muumuus with his mother.

The grimace deepens at that mental picture, and his hand protests when he returns to the usual, quick movements that he's become accustomed to using when folding clothes.

He stops for a moment, rubbing his hand against his brown cords and stretching his fingers out. He's going to need to bandage it, and he sighs irritably.

If he'd been paying attention, if he hadn't been focused on Bernadette's tiny fingers twisting in her clothes, hadn't been focused on the green flame of Penny's stare, had just been—

Sheldon stops, mostly because he is not overly given to the deeper analyzing of _other's_ actions, only his own. It's his own actions that matter the most, not necessarily what others do. He glances at his watch and the irritation flutters through him. He's already behind schedule, and he begins folding again, albeit slower than he normally would owing to the ache in his knuckles (a voice that sounds remarkably like Penny is telling him to just over it; he's being overly _Sheldon-y _about it).

The buzzer for the dryer goes off before he's finished folding his pants—what's more, his sheets aren't quite dry either, and he brushes away the irritation at this as well. The routine is broken already, what's ten more minutes now? He restarts the dryer and finishes folding his pants, though not as calmly as he would like.

Sheldon's never sure of the more subtle nature of people's actions, of social events that alter the paradigm between friends, of the smaller signs from people that something has irrevocably shifted. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd carelessly bruised his hand and fell behind schedule, he may not have noticed it at all.

He's not blind; he knows the various nervous tics and tells of his friends. How Howard's voice pitches differently when he's lying. Raj's eyes shift when he's nervous. Leonard's voice becomes way too casual when he's attempting innuendo and subterfuge. Amy twirls fingers around her hair when she's trying to emulate Penny's easy-going, Midwestern attitude because she thinks it's more attractive than who she really is.

Penny tends towards just this side of anger, of defense, as if her hackles are already risen and she's ready to pounce.

Bernadette twists her fingers around whatever she's wearing, stretching and pulling the fabric, as if unraveling it will explain everything.

Sheldon waits on his sheets, and taps his foot impatiently. It feels like the dryer is taking longer than usual; perhaps a call to the landlord will change that. He also knows that time is relative, and it seems longer because while he's no stranger to losing himself in data and irreconcilable proofs and theorems, he's not prone at all to being lost within his own thoughts on the nature of human behavior.

Social conventions are different, though it's because picking out patterns in people present a larger challenge because not everyone has the same pattern.

Sheldon grimaces again, bares his teeth, and gives into the childish need to push his foot at the dryer (he doesn't want to bruise anything else; he won't risk kicking it). He has clothes to put away, and the quivering in his stomach is just because his routine had to be altered. It's because his hand aches, because his schedule has now shifted as a result. It's because the routine was different tonight anyway, because Penny didn't join him for laundry night, as she had the tendency to do. It's because on Halo night, he'd almost physically grabbed Bernadette's wrist to stop her nervous tic, to stop her because there was hardly a need to be nervous, and while he'd done it before, it would've required actual skin contact that time, and he can't explain why the fear is still there, but none of the resistance to doing so.

He wants to put his clothes away, remake his bed, consider going to sleep. Instead, he's stuck in the laundry room waiting on a grumpy dryer, and leans against the folding table with all the silence of his own thoughts wheedling away in his brain until he feels like his head's going to burst.

Sheldon sighs, he doesn't know what changed. He's never thought any of the girls in their company were anything more than friends who had come into his life as a result of the friends he already has. He closes his eyes, decides to run through his considerably large log of memories. If he can find the shift, he can shift it back.

_Penny's hands are quick, playful; Bernadette's giggling every time Penny finds an excuse to touch her—_

_ His shirt is wet, stained with tap water and indignation; he strips both off reluctantly, and squawks when Bernadette's tiny hand pokes his chest and she giggles something about sunlight—_

_ He's in the kitchen, watching owlishly as Penny spikes his tea, and he doesn't care, doesn't care because Bernadette's on his other side and filling up another latex-glove with water, doesn't care because the smaller blonde's arms keep brushing against his own, and Penny's holding his tea up, a devious smirk on her face, he's passing the glove across Sheldon's chest, and her eyes are wide, wide, wide—_

_ He's a little lost as they finally stumble back to Bernadette's room, more than a lot drunk too, and it's probably the liquor that makes him brush a hand across Penny's lower back as he takes the pillow and blanket from Bernadette, the intoxication that makes his hands brush across Bernadette's small fingers; they both look at him like he's gone crazy, but then Penny's hands skim over Bernadette's bare shoulders until she winds her arms around the smaller girl's waist—_

_ Penny's all teeth and smiles, Bernadette's eyes are bluer than a perfect Bunsen flame, he wants to touch, wants to seek and find what's making him act like this; if he can figure it out—_

He doesn't realize he's sweating because he's stricken by how intensely aroused he suddenly is, and is horrified by the fact that his not-sore hand is pressing hard against his groin to deflect some of the pressure, only it's providing more stimulation than control, and he's pushing back against his narrow palm.

Sheldon jumps from the table, clutching the flip-fold in his hand. This is ridiculous. His hand hurts, his schedule's been interrupted, and Penny and Bernadette are just having a grand ole time at the opry upstairs. He glares half-heartedly at no one, but its aimed for the robot voice in his head.

The dryer finally dings, and he's grateful for something to keep his hands busy and his mind slightly unaware of its deeper machinations. It doesn't quite work; he's still distracted by the alteration to his usually-logical thought processes. It's another moment of distraction, he's leaned over against the dryer to pull his sheets out, and when he slams the door much harder than he normally would owing to his deep-running frustration, he's distracted enough that once again, his hand is in the way.

It cracks too, and Sheldon feels the nausea of pain rise up immediately. If he were a swearing man, he might've let loose words that would've made the devil himself ask for lessons.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Knock, knock, knock. "Penny and Bernadette."

Knock, knock, knock. "Penny and Bernadette."

There's a hush of giggles and a flurry of movement as he raises his hand to knock the third time, but Bernadette's opened the door, her elfin features awash with intoxication and a knowing smirk on her face.

Penny's got her head buried in a pillow to keep from laughing.

Bernadette's eyes are sparking though, and she raps on Sheldon's chest with a small fist. Rap, rap, rap. "Sheldon?" she asks, and Penny's giggles erupt into full-blown laughter against the fabric.

Immediately, Sheldon wonders if this was a mistake. The entire apartment smells of fruit-infused alcohol, and clearly, Penny's been mixing things, so it's nigh impossible to tell how much they've had. Penny's walking towards them though, and she's steady on her feet. Bernadette isn't swaying so much as she seems to be bouncing a bit on her heels. She's barefoot, though her stockings are a distracting shade of off-blue. The heart-stopping pain in his hand prevents him from acknowledging it as a mistake though, and he wishes they hadn't picked tonight to numb their minds against the deeper valleys of emotional confusion running between the three of them.

Penny balances her elbows on Bernadette's shoulders, rests her chin on the soft blonde hair. "Something you needed, Dr. Cooper? Decide that fence is a little uncomfortable to be sitting on?"

Sheldon tries for a derisive snort, but it comes out as a pained wheeze, and he holds up his bruised, swollen hand. Penny's face immediately sobers a little, and Bernadette squeaks.

"What on earth did you do?" Penny says, and tugs him forward by the wrist of his good hand. "Bernadette, frozen veggies in the freezer."

"I hardly think the touching is necessary, is it?" He's being steered to Penny's couch though, and Bernadette's already opened and closed the freezer. "This is ridiculous."

"It's why you came over," Penny grumbles. "Shut up and sit still."

Sheldon wants to correct her, wants to tell her that he's infuriated at the disruption to his mental processes, is enormously irritated that it was Penny and Bernadette that caused these things, and ultimately, the injury to his hand. It's difficult to find the words though, because Bernadette has situated herself beside of him and is cradling his injured hand while balancing a towel-covered bag of frozen corn over his hand, which is now screaming much worse than it had been before.

Penny's holding three bottles of water in her hand as she comes back. Despite everyone's less informed opinions, she's aware of how to counteract the worst of a hangover. She unscrews the bottles and sets one down in front of Bernadette and the other in front of Sheldon, because he looks perilously close to passing out.

"It's not like you to be so clumsy," Penny says, balancing her chin on her hand as she looks at the bruising. "What were you doing?"

"Pondering the inner workings of the universe is not conducive to shutting a dryer," Sheldon mutters in a surprisingly honest and irritated voice, though it's shaky and scared, like he's just realized that it's broken, _dear lord, he's broken the hand he _writes_ with; how will he work_?

"Bazinga?" Penny asks, and Sheldon raises an eyebrow.

"Yes, Penny. I've deliberately injured my dominant hand because I believed it would be an enchanting anecdote to my speech when I've won the Nobel," Sheldon retorts in a deadpan voice. His eyes glare at her. "_That_ was a bazinga."

Penny glares at him. "You're an asshat, you know that?"

Sheldon tilts his head to the side. "As I normally am not given to wearing hats, especially ones that would appear to look like buttocks, I find your insult trivial and immature."

Bernadette makes a noise to try and get their attention; she knows better than to interrupt them when they're getting into it. But she's pretty sure that Sheldon's actually broken something; the bruising is just a shade darker than when he came in, she realizes he must've been hugely distracted if he's made it this long without insisting someone take his final testament.

Finally, Bernadette drags out her Mrs. Wolowitz voice. "_Hey_!"

Penny jumps, Sheldon jerks, and for the first time, it appears that he's finally realized just how much his hand hurts and how swollen it is. He doesn't like the worry lining Bernadette's face.

"Sheldon, you need to go to the hospital," Bernadette finally says. "I think you've broken something."

Penny peers owlishly at Sheldon's fingers and knuckles, and she suddenly makes a pop-noise in her mouth. "_Yup_, I think you're right."

"Bernadette, might I point out that your Ph.D. is in microbiology, not medicine, and Penny—well, do I really have to elaborate?" But Sheldon's face is white, and his voice is tight with pain.

Penny snorts. "Yeah, but when my brother, Tim, slammed his hand shut in the hood of his truck to hide the cold medicine he was smuggling, that's about what it looked like." She peers closer. "Yours looks more purple-y though."

"Come on, Sheldon. We'll call a cab," Bernadette says, and glares at Penny. "Really not helping," she hisses.

"Don't feel sorry for him; he's fully capable of human emotion and function," Penny mutters. She's not sure that Bernadette's heard it, but she knows Sheldon did.

"Says the person who finds that alcohol is the best social lubrication and problem solver," Sheldon mutters right back.

The snarky comments make Bernadette's head hurt. "Come on, let's call that cab."

"Cabs are disgusting, and hospitals are no better," Sheldon points out. "Text Leonard; I'm sure he must still have Dr. Stephanie's number."

Penny's not entirely sure how she feels about the fact that Leonard _does_ have Dr. Stephanie's number.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's sheer luck that Dr. Stephanie is working, and even dumber luck that she comes to treat Sheldon, despite Leonard's presence. However, this has also involved Leonard's sheer curiosity at why in god's name Sheldon would want the doctor's phone number.

It also lands him at the hospital with Raj and Howard in tow, because once Bernadette's texted Howard that Sheldon's broken his hand and needs a ride because he's refusing to go in an ambulance or cab, no one wants to stay away for too long. However, Penny knows for a fact that she _so_ doesn't want to be around when it comes up that Leonard all but stole Dr. Stephanie from Howard, so she hides back in the corner of the waiting room to avoid talking to anyone.

The decision is semi-made for her when Bernadette comes over and tugs her back to the bathroom. Her small face is flushed and angry, and her fingers are twisting ragingly into the collar of her cardigan as she kicks the door hard to slam it shut. Penny knows that the shit must've hit the proverbial fan, wonders if Howard knows how many chances he doesn't have left.

Penny gets up to offer her immediate comfort and support, pulls Bernadette into a hug because she knows what it feels like for someone to think she needs to be a secret. Hell, Leonard's kept her a secret from his mother, Priya, Dr. Stephanie—

Her mind shuts down, because she's got an armful of sweet, pretty Bernadette, who has decided that there wasn't nearly enough weirdness to talk about the next day, because the shorter girl's opted to wrap her arms around Penny's neck and lay a fruity, vodka-flavored kiss on Penny's mouth.

Penny only squeaks, because she remembers when Amy did this to her, trying to make a point to Sheldon in her own way, and it hadn't felt _anything_ like this. But since Penny's smart in the social realm (even if she isn't anywhere else), she knows that there's no laughter past Bernadette's tiny hands weaving into her hair, can taste more anguish and rage than she can the giggling memory of Amy planting a big wet one right in front of everyone.

"Bernadette," Penny says against her lips, because she's pretty sure this is probably a big mistake of epic proportions, and she's heard enough guy-talk to know that most guys don't consider it _cheating_ if it's with someone of the same gender, and holy crap, is she really going there? "Bernadette!"

Bernadette pulls back (and down, because seriously, Penny's got four inches on her at least), and her hands are still tangled against Penny's collar; one's in the long blonde hair, the other is twisted into the hood of Penny's sweatshirt, and her face is fearful and angry, and her blue eyes are wet. Penny ignores the strike of hurt and rejection on her face, reasons that it's probably because Howard's done something incredibly stupid tonight.

Penny sighs, gently leads Bernadette to the sink. "Come on. We're going to call a cab, go back to my place, and watch Ed Norton be the Hulk."

"It counts," Bernadette finally says miserably, and starts washing her hands in such a specific fashion that it screams routine. "Liquor?"

Penny snorts. "Please, after all of that?"

It's a few minutes playing 20 questions with the boys, and an even more awkward moment when they half-heartedly ask if they want to be called when Sheldon's out. Bernadette hides mostly behind Penny for this, and Penny, who rarely misses any sort of social sign, doesn't miss the way Bernadette slides her head to avoid getting a mouth-kiss from Howard.

Then again, Penny does the same thing to Leonard. She tells herself that they both do it to avoid either one of them picking up on the smell of alcohol. They don't talk about Sheldon on the way home, and they don't talk about Dr. Stephanie either. Penny's begin to wonder if Bernadette knows about the Arctic (she reasons it's the part of her that can't let sleeping dogs lie, because that's honestly the shittiest thing she's ever seen a group do to their friend).

Still, Penny doesn't really want to talk, and Bernadette seems tired and overly weary, if the way she curls around Penny's arm is any indication. They don't talk about Bernadette's angry kiss. Penny thinks they should, but she can't force the words to come out.

When they get back, Penny doesn't bother mixing anything this time, but brings over a couple of sodas to help kill the burn of shooting rum and vodka straight. She leans back, ignores that Bernadette's leaning against her, is kind of curled into her side for comfort. "Do you want to talk about it?"

There's a catch of silence in the air, like Bernadette's considering it. Instead, Penny feels her head shake "no" against her side.

Penny tells herself she puts an arm around Bernadette's shoulders for comfort and no other reason. "I'm sorry," she finally tries.

Bernadette shakes her head. "You're not the reason."

"But you're still my best friend. I can feel sorry that your feelings are hurt."

"You didn't _do_ anything."

For some reason, Bernadette's tone doesn't hold its usual sweetness, its usual comfort. Instead, it holds a note of accusation, and it makes Penny feel like she should've said more.

Instead, they watch the Ed Norton version of the Hulk for the brief cameo of Tony Stark.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Howard groans, head in his hands, sits in the waiting room, and wonders just how many more times Bernadette's going to let him get past her with something. Still, really, if Leonard hadn't stolen the doctor in the _first_ place…

Dr. Stephanie comes from around the corner, lab coat hung over her arm. "He's fine, if any of you are curious or concerned," she says with a slightly accusatory tone in her voice. Hey, she may've been over the moon for Leonard, but really; they were all squabbling in the waiting room about stolen girlfriends while Sheldon was biting through the pain of having his hand poked and prodded, wondering how he's going to be able to work.

Raj is still the only one who has the good graces to look slightly guilty, though with all of the females that had been present, he hadn't been able to ask if Sheldon was okay or not.

Stephanie explains to them that Sheldon's broken a couple of metacarpals in his hand, in addition to the proximal phalange of his index finger, and leaves a few instructions for Leonard and a prescription/mandatory follow-up for Sheldon (really, she's pissed as hell that they'd called her because Sheldon nearly had a panic attack when she'd walked into the room). She stands outside the waiting room with a bit of curiosity.

She wishes she hadn't; Leonard and Howard are already fighting again about something that'd happened years ago, and Sheldon's still in his room. She sighs, and is suddenly a little glad that she didn't go all the way to the altar with Leonard. Raj is quietly motioning them towards the patients' rooms though at least.

Dr. Stephanie hasn't even made it to the end of her shift though when her phone rings again. It's Penny herself, though Stephanie barely remembers getting along with her at all.

Penny sighs and stumbles through a standard "hello", and Stephanie feels the tension immediately.

"Look, I know you don't like me anymore than I even know you at all," Penny says quietly. "But is Sheldon okay?"

Stephanie nods. "He's broken a few bones in his hand, nothing serious. I bandaged his hand for now; he's getting a cast from the orthopedist on call. I've seen much worse; it should heal pretty clean."

"I'm sorry you walked into such a mess," Penny offers, and it's sincere, so Stephanie softens her tone a little, into the voice she uses with the child-patients, because Penny sounds like she needs it.

"It's always a mess with those boys; Sheldon's probably the easiest one, and nobody knows it because the others are so good at pretending to be normal."

This seems to have hit the nail on the head, because Penny's quiet for a long moment before she thanks her and the call ends.

Stephanie sighs. Yeah. She was definitely glad she hadn't stalked Leonard to the altar.

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	5. The Tomato Soup Examination

Author's Note: I don't normally like to do these at the beginning, but I think some clarification is in order, as I've been somewhat vague about the pairing. This _is_, hopefully, going to lead up to Penny/Sheldon/Bernadette as a pairing. It's also going to be somewhat slow getting there—however, as a result, the rating of the story is changing from T to M; not necessarily for content, but because someone has brought it to my attention that an OT3 pairing probably should receive an M-rating on that criteria alone (thanks, SunnyCitrus!).

Additionally, thanks and shout-outs to Clint Bolr, who pointed out that Penny is more like 5'6"-ish; I'd said 5'4", owing to my bad estimation and lack of checking online how tall the actress is. Thanks again!

I'm trying to post on Saturdays and Wednesdays. I'm up to the middle of Chapter 9, but I like to have the time in between to re-edit, discuss with my beta, and take reviews/opinions into account. Hope you're enjoying so far!

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Penny's not surprised this time when she wakes up with Bernadette curled against her. They're still on the couch, Penny already feels sore from the prolonged positioning. Still, there's not much of a hangover grasping at her, mostly because for all the talk of getting smashed after the debacle with Dr. Stephanie, there hadn't been that much throwing down of liquor.

Bernadette's snoring softly against her. Penny gives into the urge to wipe Bernadette's hair from her face, and also remove her glasses. It makes her look much younger than she is, and certainly like she doesn't work with deadly viruses and bacteria on any given day, even if it's just to see how they react to different treatments that the pharmaceutical company provides (she _thinks_ that's what Bernadette does—maybe?).

Bernadette curls tighter when Penny moves slightly, and Penny grins at that. She supposes she'd be a lighter sleeper than she was if she was on constant alert-mode from Howard's mother's screaming.

Penny gives into another urge, and drops her lips against Bernadette's hair. Her face reddens as she does so, and a curl of warm arousal pulses in her chest. She didn't expect that.

What she doesn't expect the most is how she still feels a little bereft without a bony, praying mantis on her other side.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Stephanie makes him take off the surgical gown, though she fondly (and knowing of what's actually going around in a hospital) lets him keep the mask on as she shuffles him to x-ray. "How's it feeling?"

Sheldon looks at her incredulously. "I've broken two metacarpals in my dominant hand, and the proximal phalange of my index finger. How do you expect it feels?"

"Penny and her friend—"

"Bernadette."

Stephanie's mind is whirring, and not just about the way his metatarsals or phalanges are healing. "Well, Bernadette. They did exactly what they were supposed to do; they brought you to the hospital where you could get a proper x-ray and have it set."

"Hospitals are little more than petri dishes; frankly, I'm surprised I didn't require quarantine."

Stephanie's a patient woman when it comes to difficult patients. She's been trying to exercise the same restraint with boyfriends. "Proper precautions or no, it's incredibly stupid to know you have a broken hand and _not_ go to the hospital. And we gave you a round of antibiotics." She doesn't point out that the nurse and x-ray tech all but begged her to add them to his painkiller prescription.

Sheldon doesn't say anything to that right away as she steers them around a corner. "Perhaps I would've liked to have acquired a second opinion. And the antibiotics were oral, not intravenous, which would've given a more aggressive, definitive approach to any and all potential, drug-resistant microbes that one can pick up in a hospital."

Stephanie rolls her eyes at that. Sheldon's the biggest hypochondriac she's ever had to treat (with the possible exception of that whackjob from Sacred Heart that one of her urologist friends dumped on her—she hadn't quite forgiven Kim for that one, but she hadn't liked her much in the first place), and so she knows something huge is going on in that big brain of his, and it has _nothing_ to do with physics.

His face is ticking a little; he's holding something back, possibly lying. She'd been with Leonard long enough to know that Sheldon's a terrible liar, and even worse at forcing a verbal filter on himself. Which means he had a reason to want to stay behind, and judging by the irritation on his face (well, it was probably pain and discomfort too; she was maneuvering his wrist for a follow-up x-ray), that reason didn't pan out.

Still, she keeps to herself, chirping a bit at Sheldon's snappy voice.

"Do they _train_ you in med school to find the most painful way possible to place a broken appendage on an x-ray table?" Sheldon yelps when she pushes his fingers a bit around the hard, black plaster of his cast.

Stephanie tuts at him in response.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette chugs the water in her bottle, wonders if she can go to work instead of being dragged out to Olive Garden Monday with Howie and his mother. She wonders when she started wanting to avoid those outings, and her next question is if she ever really enjoyed them in the first place.

She turns a page in her organic chemistry text. She's been brushing up on the basic functional groups. It's not really because she needs to, but she likes the predictable structure of the nitrogen-rings present in the majority of the azole medications. It's possibly one of her favorite sets, since they don't kill anything—they just interfere with metabolic function (which, yes, she knows—it'll kill them, but it's a less direct approach that she can appreciate).

She's personally fond of narrow-spectrum pharmaceuticals; despite the fact microbes are bit more likely to grow resistant. God knows she's done enough Kirby-Bauer tests to last her a lifetime during one of her graduate projects with the CDC; she's right back to it to check the effect on the microbes. She thinks broad-spectrum carry too much risk.

She misses the easy structure her life used to have (her mind supplies that penicillin, though old and easy to prescribe, is having less and less of an effect as a drug on the bacteria, depending, naturally, that it was susceptible in the first place) though the more complicated assemblies of antibiotics like the sulfonamides have better structural integrity (though golly, tons of people are allergic to it).

Bernadette sighs, turns back in her text. This was a beginner's text in organic chemistry at best, but she didn't think she could look at microbes right now without drawing comparisons. The more she thought about it, the more she was certain of it.

Penny was definitely an Influenza virus, mutating and evolving constantly to shift around the new vaccinations, and deadly under the right circumstances. She never evolves the same way, never comes back the same way, but irrevocably turns the pharmaceutical world on its heads.

Bernadette grins. Sheldon's definitely Ebola. Possibly the high mortality rate strain, if she's being picky, and it pays to be picky in her line of work, so she's going with the Zaire strain. Prehistoric, unchanging, and still lethal under almost any circumstances.

She realizes with a sudden self-pity that she's comparing ruthless crushes to viruses and bacteria, and her life to antibiotics. She's _got_ to get out more.

A meaner part of her (it's still that same darn voice that sounds more and more like her mother every day, and sometimes a hint of Mrs. Wolowitz) snidely says Howard's like the Dermatophytes; inconvenient, never deadly, and just plain annoying.

She wonders if that makes Leonard like Escherichia coli. Always present, but opportunistic as hell when the chance arises to completely wreck the digestive system. She's daydreaming now, she knows, but now Amy's become somewhat like Staphlycoccus epidermis. Always present, rarely pathogenic unless there's an opportunity to become so, and even then—just somewhat irritating.

Her face colors a bit; Sheldon and Penny are the lethal ones. She wonders what that makes her.

Bernadette sighs; lets her head thump on her book. Yeah, she has _got_ to get out of the house.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon hates the urge to want to scratch his skin beneath his cast. He's seen others scratching beneath them with pencils, and been disgusted. At this point, he's almost willing to ask Wolowitz and Bernadette to make him a sanitary scratching object to get at the highly irritating parts of his wrist.

He sighs, knocks his cast on his knee a little bit. It's been more than just an inconvenience, starting from the moment they told him that he couldn't have a multi-colored cast using the Flash colors. He harrumphs at the memory, because seriously; these people had at _least_ 8 years of higher institutional training—surely that involved looking at a color wheel at some point.

None of which has been as bad as the mocking. He's had to either use his left hand to write (illegibly and rarely so he can tell what he was onto later), or struggle to hold a pencil in the parts of his fingers that he can move. It's going to be a long six weeks (_five left, five left, five left_), and he's already tired of the jokes.

As averse as he is to ignoring the barbs and childish pranks of the less intelligent of the population, it hardly seems sensible or logical to pick at something so very serious. He's broken three bones in his hand, after all; it's not like he did it on _purpose_.

Distraction was a terrible thing.

Sheldon rubs his face, and automatically squawks because he's used his dominant hand and managed to scrape the hard material of the cast against his forehead. He glares at his hand.

"What a fine mess you've trampled me into," he says accusingly, and glares at his computer.

There's a knock on the door, and Sheldon debates whether or not to even answer it. He's in a foul mood, and unless it's the good Doctor Who behind the door with an offer to travel back in time to before that first, watery weekend at Bernadette's, he's not sure he even cares who it is.

The knock comes again though, and Sheldon feels his cheek tic. It's just _rude_ not to answer, he _is_ there. With a great sigh, Sheldon goes and answers the door, awkwardly fumbling with his left hand to unlock and open it.

Bernadette's standing there with a bag from Souplantation. "Penny told me you like the tomato soup from here."

Sheldon raises an eyebrow, and looks at the bag surreptitiously. "Did you get the creamy and not the bisque?"

"Creamy."

"At what time did you acquire said soup?"

Bernadette shifts. "I had them make it fresh because I didn't know what time they make it; everyone knows that food that's been sitting on a warmer for more than an hour is at the perfect microbial growth temperature."

"Low-sodium or regular?"

"Low."

"How many croutons?"

"I had them package it separately so you could do it. Besides, who wants soggy croutons?"

Sheldon stares at her for a minute, and then steps passively to the side.

Bernadette sighs, and walks in. Definitely ebola. It's okay though; she likes negative-sense-RNA viruses.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny kicks her shoes off right beside the door, and immediately flops down on the couch. Her manager at the Cheesecake Factory, having seen all of the doubles she'd managed to pull last week, seems to think she wants to do it all the time now. She recalls the conversation with a wrinkle of her nose—

_"You know, Pen, you could really be management material if you keep these hours up."_

_ "I'm not really…uh…here to be a manger."_

_ "Oh, I know, dearie. Alice said the same thing when she started."_

Penny had literally frozen at the conversation. Alice's as dotty a yellow-polka-dot bikini, and not nearly as cute as a slightly memory-impaired old lady should be. Alice is a sweetheart, really…but she represents one of the stereotypes that Penny's never wanted to become, the stereotype that makes Penny get out of bed and look up auditions because her manager's too busy banging his newest client to line up places for his other clients to go. Right now though, he's all Penny can afford.

It gives her a little pride, knowing that she hasn't had to sleep for a part yet. True, her biggest parts so far are a toss-up between Anne Frank, _Rent_, and the hemorrhoid commercial, but that's hardly a reason to give up. And if all else fails, she's still got her ideas and outlines for the screenplays she'd brought with her when she first moved to Pasadena.

Penny sighs, pushes the strands of hair that have fallen from her bun out of her face. She's not ready to throw it in yet, not ready to become her sister, and not ready to go back home to let her brother steal from her some more. She's not that girl anymore.

And she's not one to sit around and feel sorry for herself either.

Penny sighs and lets her hair down from the bun. Things'd be a lot easier if she wasn't so damn distracted with everything else going on. It's not enough that she's feeling emotions of the warm, fuzzy variety for Sheldon, but for Bernadette too? Isn't there some life code that says you can only crush around on one person at a time?

Hell, isn't there a goddamn code that says once an arrow, always an arrow? And arrows don't curve.

Penny lays her head on the back of the couch. Unless you're James McAvoy in _Wanted_, and then arrows could probably totally curve. Or Kevin Costner from _Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves_. Or Bruce Willis in _Red_, where they used around-the-corner shotguns to aim without getting hit.

Which, naturally, hadn't stopped Bruce Willis from being a general, all-around-bad-ass and throwing grenades down his own hallway.

She gets up, needs to grab a shower and get the hell out of her uniform. She smells like burgers and cheesecake—which, to a tourist, probably smells fantastic—but to her, just kind of smells like a lack of energy and a vodka bottle at home. The hangover usually tastes like self-destruction and failure.

Penny pushes the warm fuzzy feelings aside and walks into her bathroom, haphazardly dropping clothes as she goes. She's off the next couple of days, owing to auditions she had to tell her manager about (she needs a new one, one that's not interested in just finding the newest porn star), including one she's pretty confident that she'll do well at. It's an indie flick, but it pays, and it's right up her alley of natural sensuality. The other is just a science-type pilot—the competition will be fierce as hell, but Penny's got a good feeling about this one—hell, she can actually _pronounce_ half the words in the script, for one.

It won't pay enough for her to quit the Cheesecake Factory, but maybe help with the stress of her other bills at the moment.

The warm, fuzzy feelings are still there as she pushes shampoo through her hair. She needs to concentrate on her career, because she knows, deep down, how much she hates working as a waitress just to cut her bills while she goes for her dream. Her dream may not be as academic as everyone else's, but it's still hers, and no one can take that from her.

It's just taking a little longer to get there than she thought.

And until she does get there, she's not really sure she wants to be with anyone. The rational part of her mind (that sounds an awful lot like Sheldon) points out that if she feels like she's not good enough for Sheldon or Bernadette because she hasn't gotten there yet, then what does that say about her relationship with Leonard?

Penny swears when shampoo gets in her eyes, and yelps when she fumbles directly into her shower wall and hits the ground in an awful parallel to the way she'd dislocated her shoulder so long ago. For a quick panicked moment, Penny wonders if this is _seriously_ happening all over again, especially when she _has_ the fucking ducks Sheldon told her to get, just so this _didn't_ happen again.

But nothing had popped ominously when she hit the ground, and other then being sore, she's able to pull herself off the tub floor.

If she had done something, she and Sheldon could've fought over who was going to take care of whom. A smirk falls on her lips, and wonders if Bernadette knows how to sing Soft Kitty (probably not, but Sheldon's calculating tone points out that it's okay, he'll teach her). She turns the shower up extra hot to get that image out of her mind, and then decides it needs to be cold when the image turns naughty, and it's Bernadette tucking them both into bed after she's locked the door.

Penny thumps her head against the shower stall. Guilt's sliding through her belly; she hasn't even really done anything (she just _knows_ that Leonard and Howard wouldn't care that Bernadette kissed her, even if Penny knows that it's still cheating), and she's already feeling shitty over the random thought that popped through her head.

It still reminds her of the time that she and Sheldon were both sick while Leonard went to Sweden with Raj, and the weekend they'd spent together on the couch with soup and blankets. It was pleasant, looking back on it, though at the time, Penny wasn't sure she'd _ever_ wanted to know that much about Dr. Who.

She's shivering when she gets out, and wraps a towel around her body, and another around her hair. She debates getting dressed too, but honestly, she's home for the evening, and Leonard's supposed to come over after he and Sheldon get comics and before Leonard goes to work.

Maybe that's all she needs—to remind herself why she and Leonard went into this beta test in the first place. Her skin is goosebumpy as she heads back out to her livingroom, and a nagging voice in her head says that she'll catch a death of a cold.

She harrumphs at that—being cold doesn't make a person sick, germs do. What she doesn't harrumph at is how the nagging voice sounds like Sheldon, and the logical one sounds like Bernadette. She smirks—she'd sort of expected the opposite.

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	6. The Wonderland Decoupling

The weather's turning cold again, and Halloween's just around the corner. Penny wants to throw a party, something she's done every year since moving to Pasadena. It's become her thing, really, even if the guests have changed (and the conversation topics as well). It's never boring though, especially when she half-heartedly agrees to let Leonard bring out the cornstarch and water with a new sub-woofer (originally intended for her car) that she's bought second-hand from one of the busboys.

Penny throws black, purple, and orange streamers around 4A, because their place is bigger. It's going to be a quieter party than last year, because Sheldon's cast hasn't come off yet (it will in another week) and also because Penny—though she hasn't told them yet—got one of the parts she auditioned for, and she wants to keep it between friends.

It's not the indie flick (it didn't pay near as well as the ad had said, and it wasn't nearly enough for her to be that naked in front of a camera), but it is the sitcom pilot with the working title, _Lab Rats_.

She hasn't started filming yet, but she's excited all the same, because the premise seems funny enough (wacky hijinks in a forensic lab setting; take away the forensics and that's been her life since she moved into 4B), and she had to appreciate the fact that though she'd been trying out for one of the science-y parts, they'd given her a call back for a cop part. It's small, and it's only a pilot, but still—

It has potential, and potential is what Penny thinks—no, _knows_—she's made of.

Penny looks at her work around the apartment. Halloween's not for another week, but her filming starts promptly on November 1st, so they're having their annual party early. She's hung streamers haphazardly over anything that'll stay still (including the DNA model), and has also strung jack-o-lantern lights across the windows. She thinks Sheldon would probably freak a little if she tried to put the paper decorations up (though she still put a witch on the back of the bathroom door).

Bernadette and Amy are on their way over to help her prepare snack trays. Penny glances at her watch, and smiles fondly at the tirade Sheldon had been throwing about having to work around his cast for a costume. Leonard's whining had been a little less cute, mostly because he'd been trying to pacify Sheldon into either A) just not dressing up or B) just not attending the party. It's irritating, because the latter argument had nearly won over until Penny had jumped in and pointed out it was an annual thing between friends, and thus (she knows words too), a non-optional social convention.

Leonard had looked a little wounded, and then kicked the floor as he'd asked Sheldon if he even _had_ any ideas to work around the cast.

Apparently, Sheldon had found something, because he's currently shopping with Leonard for some finishing touch or another, with Leonard rolling his eyes and teasing Sheldon's OCD-tendencies the entire way.

It'd made Penny feel a little irritated, because Sheldon doesn't have those tendencies to be difficult—he has them for his own reasons.

Penny sighs, and then wonders if it's too early to break out the alcohol.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette shuffles some of the bags between her hands; Amy's just as laden down, and unable to relieve the shorter girl of much. Amy's chirping away about parties and the ones she used to have with her imaginary friends and cousins as a child, and how many of them always had excuses at the last minute for why they couldn't come (both varieties of guest: imaginary and kin).

It's why it's hard to stay mad or irritated at Amy's unique brand of odd, because the anecdotes are something Bernadette relates to from her own childhood. She supposes it's easier though for her, because Bernadette had the literal Peanuts gallery of siblings (including her sister, Sam, that her parents haven't spoken to in five years since Sam came out), and while it was always crowded, she always had someone to play with.

Bernadette shifts the bag again; it's getting heavy, and they've still got half a flight to go. She sighs, somewhat tuning out Amy's neurobio-speak on the importance of social gatherings within a tribe of friends and why it's vital to secure Raj a mate sooner rather than later.

It all rather makes her head and teeth vibrate again.

With a frustrated sigh (of course Amy doesn't hear the exasperation, because it's _Amy_), Bernadette manages a good solid kick to the door. She's wearing sneakers, something she doesn't normally wear because then she really _is_ a few millimeters above five feet even, but it's still early in the day, and Penny had asked them to help with set-ups before they got into their costumes.

Penny blessedly opens the door though, and Bernadette smiles brightly, dumping a few of the bags immediately into Penny's arms. The shorter girl makes a beeline for the bathroom as Amy cheerfully greets her "bestie".

She's really got to get the irrational anger to stop whenever Amy calls Penny bestie—if she keeps disappearing to the bathroom like this, they're going to think she's got a bladder problem.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny feels ridiculously short-tempered by the time she and Bernadette are ready to start costuming up. She doesn't know if its Bernadette's uncharacteristic recalcitrance or Amy's excited, non-stop chatter about social conventions and the important, anthropological history of the gathering part of homo sapiens' evolutionary tree, but she's ready to snap and break into the liquor early all over again. She knows what a bad idea it is; she's barely eaten anything most of the day (save a few pickles and cubes of cheese as they were prepping the finger food trays), and she's feeling like her next tirade could be more hurtful than she means.

She doesn't want to Bruce Banner on someone.

Penny takes a deep calming breath, reasons that she's just hungry and a little tired. She's had trouble sleeping since the "incident" (well, _second_ incident, since she's already dubbed that liquored-out night at Bernadette's apartment the first one) at the hospital bathroom. Bernadette's been mum about it, however, and Penny's pretty sure that things are going to go back to normal.

That's not why she's frazzled and ready to rip someone's head off, _really_ (because Penny's still a better liar than any of them, and if Bernadette just wants to let it go, then that's what they should all do, and the lying comes in handy, because then she doesn't feel like there's been a missed opportunity that'll be congealing into tar in the back of her brain, and—oh, crap on a pita, she needs to _stop thinking_).

She grits her teeth, and when Raj and Howard show up, already in costume, Penny's got a nasty feeling about what Bernadette's going to be. She was curious, when Bernadette didn't say much about what her costume was, but as Howard tips his violently purple, orange-scarf accentuated hat, and Raj's bunny ears bounce a little on his head, she knows they're going for a theme.

Bernadette picks up the costume bag she'd brought with her, looking all for the world like she'd rather eat dirt or drink tap water (Penny's heard Bernadette and Sheldon both go on enough about tap water to know that it's nearly the same thing to her) then change into her costume.

"We're all a little _mad_," Howard cackles cutely at her, and kisses Bernadette's nose.

Penny's suddenly extremely glad that her costume accounts for the paintball handguns she's going to be sporting—she'd splurged on them (sort of a reward from an all-nighter of gluing together Penny Blossoms by herself, because she'd wanted to surprise the boys) when they'd made her a permanent fixture on the Physics' paintball team.

Her lips curved—she was an honorary member only, by Sheldon's account. But hey—she knew what Schrödinger's Cat was; that completely counted.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny's fears are confirmed when Bernadette comes out of the bathroom in 4B, and the shorter girl looks absolutely miserable. She's wearing a ballet-style brown leotard, with a long, swishy, bohemian-style skirt that hits her all the way to the ankles (also brown), with flats of the same color. Her face is painted like a mouse, with whiskers and a dark smudge of coloring on her nose, and the ears are perched in her hair.

Penny can see the slight inclination to kill someone behind Bernadette's eyes. "You look great, sweetie," she tries, tugging playfully on the short tail hanging from Bernadette's waist.

Bernadette only smiles weakly. "Howie thought since Raj didn't have a date, we could do something themed, and he's just gotten done with doing some game about Alice going psychotic."

Penny hugs her a little. "I could see you being Alice in that way."

Bernadette laughs, but it's still a little weak. "If I get any cuter, I think the world might die," she finally says off-handedly, though Penny can see that it's hurt her feelings a little that Howard and Raj made her be the Dormouse.

Penny can't deny that Bernadette looks adorable though.

"What are you going as? You wouldn't tell us," Amy asks. She's wearing a woman's standard-issue, red Star Trek uniform that does more for her body than her usual sweaters and loose-fitting skirts. Her long brown hair is pulled into a stylized bun that Penny had put some pretty chopsticks into. "It must be killer for you to keep it a secret this long, BFF."

Bernadette grits her teeth.

Penny smirks at them. "It involves guns."

Bernadette tips her head. She's not always familiar with the games that Howie plays; she only knew the one about Alice because she'd lost him to it upon release for nearly a week, longer than some of the other games he messed around with. She knows there's a game-based movie about someone killing zombies, but she can't recall the actress or the game.

Amy's looking thoughtful too though. "Is it the Alice from Resident Evil? Because that would tie in nicely with Bernadette, Howard, and Rajesh's costumes very nicely, albeit in an odd, hodgepodge sort of fashion."

Bernadette thinks her teeth might actually be making audible noises.

"Nope," Penny pops, and disappears into her room, leaving Amy and Bernadette on the couch.

Amy turns towards Bernadette, fixes her with a blunt stare. "Bernadette, as you are my friend, I am inclined to ask you what is wrong. You have been near-mute the entire day." She raises an eyebrow when Bernadette starts picking at a loose thread in the skirt she's wearing. "Are you angry about something?"

"I don't like loose threads; what's wrong with that?" Bernadette asks, and hopes the irritation isn't in her voice.

Amy looks a little hurt though. "There is no reason to become defensive. I am simply inquiring because you have been acting strange since…well, perhaps five weeks ago?" She tilts her head in the way that Bernadette can tell things are linking up. "Are you still upset that Sheldon's broken his hand?" She claps her hands on her legs, as if she's found something particularly telling in an experiment. "Bernadette, as a scientist, you must know the logical fallacy in blaming yourself for someone else's injury."

Bernadette smiles lamely. "I know…I just…I was here with Penny that night; she usually does laundry with him."

"Ah, disruption to his routine," Amy says calculatingly. "I see how you would think that, but Sheldon's mind is very schooled and independent of requiring others to complete scheduled tasks. It was a clumsy moment of weakness; we all have them." She taps her jaw. "Why, just yesterday, I burned some of Ricky's ear hair when lighting his cigarette."

Bernadette's eyes widen—she's not sure how Amy gets away with training monkeys to smoke. "I thought he was able to operate the lighter?"

"He was being rather difficult," Amy admits, and leans forward, as if imparting a secret. "I've switched him to menthol ultra-lights, and he knows the difference, but we need him to continue his habits to forward the addiction study."

Bernadette's a little horrified; she's not going to lie in her own head. She also knows the importance of scientific experimentation though, and wonders if the microbes hurt when she douses them with assorted antibiotics, both of the test variety and the tried and true.

Amy seems to note some of the emotion on Bernadette's face, and waves it off. "We're actually going to continue the study into addiction habits and the effect it has on the release of certain neurochemicals in the brain. He's going to be quitting very soon so we can test his neuroreceptors as well," she says, as if it lessens the effect. She pats Bernadette's hand awkwardly.

Bernadette nods, because—well, at least they're going to have the poor thing quit.

"Y'all ready for this?" Penny sing-songs through her door.

"Bring it, bestie!" Amy calls out, her head turning immediately.

Bernadette turns too as Penny walks in, and she immediately feels like she's ten years old in her Dormouse costume.

Penny's dressed as one of the death dealers from the Underworld franchise; she's wearing form-fitting leather pants and a black corset with a long-sleeved, black leotard underneath. She hadn't gone for heels though; the black boots she had on looked well-worn and definitely much loved. The utility belt was slung low on her waist, dropping down on her hip, with silver paintball handguns on either side.

The best part was the long, black trench coat she wore. She looked radiant and dangerous, and Bernadette swallowed around the lump in her throat.

Penny squealed a little though, which meant the shock must've shown on their faces. "I know, right?" she says excitedly. "One of my contacts in costuming hooked me up with the corset, and the pants…well, I've had those." She winked salaciously. "The coat, on the other hand…"

Bernadette touches it and immediately raises an eyebrow. "It's not new."

"Nope," Penny pops, and Bernadette gets a good luck at the simple, plain make-up Penny's used to make herself look paler. She grins, and it makes Bernadette squirm back into Amy's leg a little, because Penny's got fake vampire teeth in. "I borrowed it from one of the other bartenders at the Cheesecake Factory. Turns out he's a complete goth, and he's got like…ten of these."

"He's letting you keep it?" Bernadette squeaks.

Penny waves dismissively. "Of course not." She grins wryly. "Apparently, those goths just can't have enough trench coats." She runs her hands down the smooth material of the coat though, a little bit of envy in her face. "He might just have to part with this one though, if I take some of his shifts."

Amy nods sagely though, not getting the humor right away. "I tried to go goth, as you call it, in high school, but my mother threatened to send me to a convent." She pats Bernadette's hand again. "Nothing wrong with nuns, but you understand, right?"

Bernadette does, though it would've been a lot less awkward if Amy hadn't thought it would offend her in the first place. She doesn't mention that Howard's initial idea for costumes hadn't included Raj, and had been a priest and a nun. She sighs.

"You look really amazing, Penny." Bernadette reaches for one of the silver-colored guns on Penny's black belt. "Are those—_real_?"

Penny shakes her head and pulls one off. "No, just paintball. But still, nice touch, right?"

Bernadette nods. Scratch feeling ten—she feels like she's going trick-or-treating and is still young enough that she's only allowed to go one block, and she has to be accompanied by two adults or one of the nuns from school.

Amy nods enthusiastically. "As always, I insist you would look beautiful wearing a sack, but in that get-up? Bestie, you're _delicious_."

Penny laughs it off as best she can—Amy may not be physically affectionate, but she more than makes up for it with the awkward not-flirting-sort-of-flirting she tends to do. Penny's gaze shifts to Bernadette, who's twisting her hands in her lap and looking more and more regretful by the minute that she'd agreed to this.

Penny taps her chin for a minute—she's got tons of stuff in her closet. She _has_, in fact, played a little bit of the new Alice game. And if push comes to shove, they can always be fashionably late to the party.

They've got plenty of time, Penny calculates, because she _did_ give Leonard a subwoofer with permission to use cornstarch and water; that would buy them at least half an hour. There's also food already there for everyone, which tacks on an additional ten to twenty minutes. It hadn't taken long to set up said food-trays, and Bernadette had wrapped them nicely in a way that she'd said even Sheldon couldn't complain about before tucking them into the fridge.

Since it's only about five, Penny decides at the last minute, and sits beside of Bernadette. It surprises her when Bernadette immediately shies away and stands up.

"I'm going to go call Howie, see if everything's ready or if they need help," she says tightly, and goes to Penny's bedroom to make the call.

Amy watches her go. "You'd think she'd be thrilled; she looks downright adorable in that."

Penny taps her chin again. "I don't think she wanted to be _adorable_, Ames." She starts looking for her laptop. "Maybe we should show the Mad Hatter and the March Rabbit how _mad_ some people can be."

"I believe you meant the March Hare," Amy says, but then notes the glint in Penny's eyes. "Are you suggesting that we engender Bernadette to change costumes without first notifying Howard or Rajesh?"

Penny pulls her laptop forward. "Damn skippy," she chirps, and types in an image search for American McGee's Alice. It probably won't be authentic to the boys' standard, but dammit, she was really tired of seeing Howard put that look on Bernadette's face.

The image results come back, and Penny grins widely as she turns the screen to Amy.

"Bestie, you're not only sexy and beautiful, but deviously brilliant too."

Penny feels a little bit of guilt as Amy scoots closer so they can find the best image to try and model a costume off of (_christ on a cracker, they've only got about an hour or so_), because she wishes it were Bernadette sitting beside of her. She squares her shoulders, chews her lower lip, and begins to run through a mental catalogue of her closet.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Howard looks at Leonard's tattered clothing. "Urban hobo?" he asks with a smirk.

Leonard rolls his eyes. He'd put yellow contacts in, because authentic is his middle name. "Lycan," he corrects, and resists the urge to rub his eyes or pat down his hair. He'd left it ungelled in order to look a little more unkempt. He's sure he can deal with it—the irony of his costume and Penny's will more than likely be great conversation all night.

Howard nods. "So Penny's what; that girl from Twilight?"

Raj jumps in, rabbit ears flopping and bouncing. "Dude, have some respect—her name is Bella, and everyone's who anyone is Team Edward, not Jacob."

Leonard shakes his head; his smirk is an easy, casual slide against his face. "You'll see," he finally says. "It's going to be great."

"I highly doubt that," Sheldon comments as he comes around the corner, finally done with his costume. "And if they're keeping with Penny's schedule habits, they'll be late anyway, and then nothing is going to be great, because then this will be just like any other Halloween we've had since before Penny moved her unique brand of chaos across the hall from us."

Leonard sighs. Sheldon always manages to do the most authentic costumes in the best way, and there's no way the taller physicist should be able to. Considering Sheldon's attention to authenticity and detail, however, it's—_clever_, to say the least, which is definitely working in his favor.

"You're bloody Sherlock Holmes!" Howard crows in a poor attempt at British accent. He frowns at the reddish stains on Sheldon's white, Victorian-style shirt and jacket, as well as the dingy-looking sling around his neck. "What's with the sling?"

Raj is scooping some chips from the bowl. "He's Holmes _after_ Moriarty fish-hooked him, dude. Did you even watch the movie?"

Howard gives him a wicked smile though. "Bernadette went with me to see it." The smirk widens. "I don't really see all of the movie when Bernie goes with me."

Sheldon rolls his eyes at that, and musses the dark wig on his head. He hadn't had time to grow his hair out, and frankly, he would've had to dye it anyway—the hat would suffice. But the rest of his costume—right down to using a mixture of corn syrup, water, and red dye for blood, and coffee grounds for dirt—is to the letter of the famous Robert Downey, Jr. incarnation from the movies. The sling is nice; it covers up the stupid cast that Sheldon would seriously consider building a death ray for at this point.

"Hell, when we went to see Suckerpunch, I'm not even sure what the big twist at the end was," Howard finishes, and wags his eyebrows.

Sheldon glares at him, though it's pretty close to what he normally does when he looks at Wolowitz. "That's hardly a respectful way to talk about attending cinemas with your mate," he points out. "Gentlemen don't kiss and tell."

Howard waves him off. "Never said I was a gentleman," he points out. "And what would you know about it? The only women you've ever kissed have been related to you or in a convent."

"Don't remind him; it'll scare him off of Amy forever," Leonard points out, and takes a seat with Howard on the couch. "After I took Penny to see Tron, I had to go see it again by myself just to make sure I saw it all."

The conversation devolves into Howard and Leonard exchanging which movies they'd seen the least of while in the company of their girlfriends, with Raj listening somewhat enviously.

It all makes Sheldon more frustrated than normal. He tells himself it's just because that Bernadette and Penny deserve more respect than that, but Bernadette's in the back of his head, quietly pointing out that it's for other reasons too, and Penny's singing that she'd take him to a movie for distraction any time.

Sheldon shakes his head to clear it, eyes the assorted alcoholic beverages in the fridge with severe trepidation. The girls aren't here yet—in fact, he's been distracted enough by thinking what uncouth hooligans Wolowitz and Leonard are that he didn't notice they're late.

He knows they're exactly five minutes and twenty-three seconds (twenty-four) late, which is hardly early in Penny's opinion.

Sheldon sighs as he takes his place in his spot. "Leonard, you mentioned that you had acquired a subwoofer from Penny, did you not?"

It's enough to derail the conversation from debasing into sexual conquests between Leonard and Wolowitz, and Sheldon's glad—even though the Sherlock Holmes he's representing was an alcoholic, he's not prepared to numb his auditory sensors just to deal with the outright jealousy he feels erupting whenever Leonard and Wolowitz start going on about their sexual lives.

It doesn't help when they're still talking about it as they began placing plastic wrap around the speaker. Sheldon groans—

He may have to do something just to numb the anger sliding its heavy way across his chest.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the end, Penny only has about a third of what she'd need to do Bernadette's costume, and it's getting harder to keep said-friend from figuring out what she and Amy are doing.

"Amy, you think you can stall them for about an hour?" Penny finally asks, and pulls out her phone to call her friend in costuming at the theatre.

Amy nods enthusiastically, smiling widely at the curious look on Bernadette's face. She hugs Penny quickly. "Leave it to me, bestie. I'll keep the boys busy."

"Thanks, Ames; you're a star." Penny turns to Bernadette and fists her hands on her hips as Amy leaves. "Let's go. I'm not letting you go to a Halloween party like that."

"Penny, we're supposed to be there in half an hour!" Bernadette yelps, but Penny's already dragging her towards the door. "That's not enough time to do something else."

Penny huffs irritably. "I don't have many connections, but I don't want to see you miserable all night." They're already going down the stairs, and Bernadette's having to double-step to keep up with Penny's longer strides.

"What do you mean, connections?"

Penny sighs. She'd really wanted to tell everyone together. "I got a part," she finally edges out.

Bernadette's immediately all smiles again. "Really? In what? Is it permanent? When do you start? Tell me!"

"I will," Penny promises. "But first thing's first. I found out about it because one of the girls I work with does costuming at the local theatre when she's not at the restaurant, and she's always got her ear to the floor for auditions. But she does _costuming_," Penny emphasizes.

Bernadette's stomach skips, and she's pretty sure her heart stops for a full three beats when Penny smirks at her, slow and hard.

"Remember when Howard told you we're all a little mad?"

Bernadette swallows; she doesn't trust her voice, so she nods instead as Penny's arm slides over her shoulders, and her skin tightens at the contact. She hopes that Penny can't feel the goosebumps playing havoc underneath the thin shirt she's wearing, hopes Penny can't hear the way her heart's lodged itself into her throat, pulsing in time with the growing heat in her lower stomach. Her skin's red; she _knows_ it—Penny's talking though, and Bernadette makes herself turn towards Penny's dangerously calm voice.

"Well, some of us are downright psychotic in Wonderland, and it's always good to show somebody so."

Bernadette still can't say anything, even when Penny's taken her arm away so she can get into the car. It's about a twenty-minute drive, wherein Penny doesn't say much more about the part she got, and it's driving Bernadette crazy. The sleeve of her brown leotard is threadbare by the time Penny stops.

An hour later though (Sheldon's going to be so mad they're not there yet, and by all that's sweet and holy, she's already got three texts from Howie wondering where she and Penny are at, because Amy's bringing out sleepover games like Seven Minutes in Heaven, and Raj looks like he's about to explode and that weird vein is popping out on Sheldon's neck again), Bernadette's entirely sure it's worth it.

Forget Wonderland, some people are downright psychotic in Pasadena too, it seems.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	7. The Split Universe Theorem

Amy feels exasperated. Really, the boys are being so picky about what they'll play. She's nearly exhausted her list of sleepover games on her phone after she finally had to stop looking at boy-girl-party games (mostly because, as Howard put it, he wasn't "willing to spend seven minutes _anywhere_ alone with Sheldon, let alone anyone else besides Bernie"—honestly, Amy's not entirely sure what Bernadette sees in Howard half the time), but everyone's getting a little antsy.

Amy's curious too; she'd seen the images Penny had picked off the internet. She's glad her usual awkwardness allows the boys to believe nearly anything that comes out of her mouth. She sits beside of Sheldon on the couch; he's booted up his laptop and appears to be working.

"No work; this is a party, Sheldon," Amy says frankly, and moves to shut his laptop.

Sheldon raises his good hand, stopping the movement immediately. "All the guests have not arrived, ergo: not yet a party."

Amy rolls her eyes. "There's music, food, and shenanigans, ergo: party."

Sheldon narrows his gaze at her. "Koothrappali and Wolowitz making poor references to Lewis Carrols' classic hardly count as shenanigans, and Leonard's even poorer attempts to sneak away and deduce why Penny and Bernadette have chosen to be rude and not show up is not what I'd classify as entertainment, ergo: not a party."

Amy considers this for a moment, watches as Leonard texts on his phone again, and Howard and Raj are building a small pyramid of tea cups before moving to new chairs around the kitchen island. She gets up to watch the movements, earning her stares from both Howard and Raj.

"I believe your reference would be more effective if you were to announce when the move to a new chair is going to happen," Amy points out. "Also, clean cups."

Raj leans over to Howard's ear.

"I don't care what it'd add to it," Howard mutters, but Raj furiously whispers again. He grimaces and looks to Amy witheringly. "Would you care to join the tea party then?"

Amy smiles broadly. "Marvelous." She's just started to sit down when her phone vibrates on the coffee table. "In a moment." She runs back and grabs it, and breathes a sigh of relief. "Penny and Bernadette are on their way up."

Leonard looks up from his phone finally. "She didn't text me," he says curiously, and Amy can see how Penny gets a little tired of the puppy-look on Leonard's face and is glad her first impression of Leonard had been correct: he's tedious at best.

"She's been busy with Bernadette," Amy replies. "I believe they'd forgotten something for Penny's costume, and they'd needed to retrieve it."

Sheldon sighs exasperatedly. "It's hardly our fault that Penny can't keep her belongings straight. Perhaps if she would implement an organizational schematic to that mess of inefficiency she calls home, she wouldn't lose things quite so often."

"You're being a buzzkill," Amy points out. When she's sure that Leonard's busied himself with trying to build a free-standing teacup pyramid with Raj and Howard, she leans towards Sheldon a bit and lowers her voice. "In reality, they were fixing Bernadette's costume."

Sheldon shakes her off, feeling a little cramped. "What do you mean? Wolowitz informed me that in agreement with his and Koothrappali's costume, Bernadette would be attending as the dormouse from the Carrol novels."

Amy shrugs. "I believe that Bernadette felt pigeonholed into the costume, and it inadvertently hurt her feelings, owing to her insecurities over her petite stature."

Sheldon swallows, and opts not to respond. He still remembers the slightly hysterical, hurt look on Bernadette's face when he'd rattled off her approximate height and weight weeks ago. He thinks it's hardly a reason to be insecure; her short stature is possibly what attracts Wolowitz to her in the first place.

He's getting better at ignoring it when Wolowitz or Leonard do something to upset the girls. True, he has to keep screaming mind-over-matter in his head over and over, but it's getting easier. It's not like he's broken anything else since his hand, so he calls it a win.

He calls fail when he has to ignore the new fact that Penny and Bernadette went somewhere without him, especially when he's the superior cosplayer in their group, and his advice could've been invaluable. Strike could've, it _would've_. He hears their steps outside of the apartment now, has to grit his teeth and clench his good fist a bit to ignore the unwelcome spirals of anticipation and warmth that are currently wreaking havoc with his adrenal glands and heart rate.

Instead, Sheldon does a first. He gets up, walks directly to the fridge, and glares at the bottle of rum and has to verbally smack the temptation and irritation away. He looks around immediately and guiltily, because everyone _knows_ he doesn't drink, and he doesn't want to have to explain the sudden and abrupt behavioral change (because it might actually end with him throwing a tantrum of the adult-variety where someone ends up with a bloody nose or split lip). It's all very new for him—

He doesn't like it.

But no one's seen him look at it, because Leonard's hugging Penny and proudly showing off her costume. Raj looks a little confused when Bernadette comes in behind her, and Howard's face is an amalgam of bemusement, irritation, and embarrassment.

"Bernie," Howard starts, and Sheldon loathes, loathes, _loathes_ that wily tone of voice the engineer takes on whenever he's trying to get his way (_especially because it makes Bernadette listen and cave—shut up, the cats aren't even yours to observe_), "I thought you were going to be my little dormouse."

Bernadette shrugs weakly. "Penny thought this would be better."

Amy nods enthusiastically. "Much better; you were blending in too much with all that brown." She raises an eyebrow at Howard. "Wouldn't Raj have made a much better dormouse, owing to his natural skin tone?"

"The Mad Hatter and the March Hare had a bromance going on, dudette," Raj points out, and it's mostly the beer in his hand talking.

"Bernadette, can I speak to you privately?" Howard asks, and his voice is a little strained, some of the slick persuasion having disappeared, replaced by more of the anger and embarrassment.

"No," Bernadette says quietly, but firmly. "I like my costume, and Penny went to a lot of trouble."

It certainly makes it worth it though; Bernadette's come as American McGee's Alice, complete with a prop butcher knife that looks like its got _actual_ blood on it. Her white apron is ripped strategically, tattered in other places, and there's 5 roughly-carved, wooden vowels hanging from one of the pockets. Her dark blue dress is shorter than the ones she normally wears, and the whole costume is splattered with rusty-colored spots of blood. She's wearing white tights that they'd gotten from Bernadette's apartment on the way, and a pair of shiny black Mary Janes that Penny had actually been saving for Bernadette's birthday, but now was as good a time as any.

Additionally, Penny must've spent the extra few minutes to do Bernadette's make-up, which makes her look hollow-cheeked and pale; her eyes are especially dark, owing to Penny's heavy-handed eyeliner techniques.

Howard shuffles Bernadette out after a few more quiet words though.

Sheldon wants to punch him. He goes for the punch _bowl_ instead, and eyeballs Penny's leathery outfit and paintball handguns. "Very fitting."

"Me or Bernadette?" Penny smirks.

Sheldon snorts. "It's "Bernadette or I", for one, and two, though your attention to the authenticity of the costume leaves much to be desired—Alice doesn't carry vowels with her, and Selene from the Underworld franchise does not have blonde hair _or_ green eyes—it does not decrease the overall effect I'm given to think you were attempting."

Penny smiles widely at him, though he can see the way her eyes are looking past him towards where Bernadette and Howard are outside of the apartment. She nods in approval of Sheldon's own costume, and suddenly sniffs.

"Why do you smell like old coffee?" she asks.

Sheldon looks at her in that way that makes her feel like she's five. "Penny," he stresses, "I wasn't about to rub _actual_ dirt into a costume. I'm not risking my impeccable health for authenticity. I was assured that coffee grounds offer the same stained look."

They both know he'd probably have had a coronary rubbing enough actual dirt into a costume to intentionally stain it.

"You and Holmes have a lot in common," Penny finally accedes, and takes a long drink of the punch he'd poured for himself, because she enjoys the way his face tics and narrows itself in frustration.

"We do. We're both brilliant, though I daresay given his time period of the Industrial Revolution, I'm more so owing to a furthering in technology," Sheldon responds dryly.

Penny shrugs. "I was actually just going to say you're both insane."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's a long half hour before Bernadette and Howard come back, but Bernadette looks a little triumphant, and Howard looks chagrined. He immediately sidles up to Raj, muttering something about women the entire way.

Bernadette joins Penny and Amy at the kitchen island. "Boys," she offers up.

"The argument must have been smooth; there were very few auditory indications of displeasure," Amy responds. "Though when you get going, it is sometimes in a frequency that I'm reasonably certain only dolphins can comprehend."

Bernadette lets the comment slide, because again, it's _Amy_. "We took it to the ground floor," she admits. "Howie's mad because he thought it was perfect. I finally won because I told him that everyone knows the Mad Hatter and Alice are a little bit of a couple, like Dorothy and the Scarecrow."

"Except for that part in the game where I'm pretty sure Alice wails on the Mad Hatter with that butcher knife," Penny points out, but grins at Sheldon as she thinks of the Scarecrow. "Maybe next year." She claps her hands, rubs them together. "Who wants what?" She gestures towards the liquor bottles.

Amy starts going off about peer pressure, but at least this time, she's right.

Penny grins as she starts getting out the ingredients she'll need, and picks some of the finger food off the trays. Time to get this party started.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She wakes up with Leonard in her apartment, and her limbs are more than a little sore. She chalks that up to the drunken game of twister she'd started with Amy and Bernadette (it's becoming their thing) until Howard started with the usual jokes, and no amount of talking-to's from Bernadette would get them to stop.

Penny groans. She's felt way worse before after a party, and she supposes it has something to do with the fact that she hangs out with professionals that have careers, because the only one with the tendency to overindulge besides her is Raj, and that's only because two beers lets him talk, but one's not enough, and two is about six too many when it comes to him.

As it is, she's only got the familiar cotton-mouth and a slight twinge in the base of her skull that makes her feel like her head's stuffed full of the same crap drying her mouth out. She rolls against Leonard, feels only bare skin. Well, that's unsurprising. Beta-test or not, alcohol's always been a surprising sexual lubrication (no pun intended) for the two of them.

It didn't bother her before, because that's what she'd always done. It bothers her a lot now, and she turns her head slightly to listen for anyone that might've decided to crash at her place as well. She doesn't hear much, and she decides it's mostly because her ears are slightly distracted by the headache beginning to ramp it up in her cranium.

She groans again, and this time Leonard stirs. His glasses are on the nightstand, along with his inhaler, and he curls tighter around her. Her mind supplies that it's clingy and somewhat needy, her heart supplies that she's just looking for reasons.

Still—she needs either coffee or water, and about as much aspirin or ibuprofen as she can stomach. She kisses Leonard quickly on the cheek; he seems to relax a bit and release her.

Penny grabs a pair of shorts and a wife-beater from the floor, does a quick sniff as she pulls them on—they'll pass since she hasn't showered yet, and can still sort of taste fruity drinks behind the dry-mouth. It's because of this that she decides to brush her teeth first. She's still thinking that she's felt _much_ worse after a party before as she enters the bathroom.

She's even debating humming a little bit, because she's finally woken up in the morning without wondering what she could've gotten past a drunk Bernadette or slightly-blitzed Sheldon, it means maybe she can work this thing out with Leonard. He's a good guy, most of the time—she's finding it hard to forgive him a few things, but couples have weird quirks like that all the time.

Her heart is supplying again what a liar she is, and the desire to hum stops.

Penny sighs, mechanically pulls out her toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash. It's a time-tested placebo that she knows will at least make her mouth feel human again, and therefor make her feel a little better as well. Maybe she'll take her shower first after all.

Her toothbrush is sticking out of her mouth when she pulls her shower curtain aside to start the water, and a startled yelp falls out of her mouth, far louder than she meant it, and disturbing the sleeping figure in the bathtub.

By god, it's Howard-bloody-Wolowitz, and he's _sleeping in her tub—holy crap, is that Good Luck Bear?_

Sure enough, it is, but he only stirred a little in his sleep at the surprised yelp. The green care bear is tucked underneath his head, and the quilt her grandmother made for her (that normally has its own designated spot on her couch) is tucked around him.

Penny spits out her toothpaste and quickly rinses off her toothbrush. She pokes him experimentally, but he's clearly dead to the world. Perhaps he did overindulge for once—she frowns, because it's not like any of them (save Raj and her) to get so completely wasted that they pass out in someone's tub.

Penny sighs—she needs a shower, and this _is_ Howard, after all; they're friends. Sort of. She sighs, and kneels beside of the tub, deciding that she'll save Leonard the hassle.

"Howard," Penny says with medium volume, mindful of the numerous times she's had a hangover-headache and someone's banged on her door or yelled her name. He shakes his head a little bit, and snuggles back down. She sighs—like any of the boys, Howard's a _teensy_ bit adorable when he's sleeping and his mouth is closed. She shakes his shoulder as hard as she dares, because her head's hurting enough that she doesn't want him yelling. "Howard!" she tries again.

"Five minutes, ma; I know when I need to be where," he bites out, and pushes his head further into the bear.

"Howard!"

His eyes open blearily when she's said his name a little louder, and the brown color is shot through with red. Penny frowns—she knows the difference between bloodshot and tear-shot, as it were, and she's having trouble discerning which one Howard's is.

He looks around, as if he completely doesn't recall how the hell he ended up in someone's bathtub (it's not like he's ever really seen her bathroom, she _hopes, oh god_), but his eyes train owlishly on her.

"Penny?"

His voice is uncharacteristically quiet, and it makes her worry.

Penny opts to sit on the rim of the tub as Howard manages a sitting position. "Fun times last night, Howie?" she asks, hoping that her tone is light enough to snap him out of his bleary-eyed hangover a bit (and at least get the hell out of her tub on her couch, because _christ_, she needs a goddamn shower, and at this rate, she'll need coffee before that, which means trekking back to 4A for milk because she's pretty sure hers is out of date by a week).

The nickname has an effect, just not the desired one. He glares at her, and Penny's throat closes a little. He hasn't looked at her like that in nearly four years, not since she had to all but beg him to come and help with the robot wars against Kripke.

There's no bruised skin or bloody nose this time, though he looks just as wounded. "Think that's funny, do you," he states more than asks. "Kick a man when he's down?"

Penny looks bewildered though. "I was more just kind of teasing you about passing out in my bathtub."

Howard immediately covers his face with the care bear. "You told me I could," he points out sharply. "After…" he doesn't finish, and his voice cracks a little. He starts to move around though, gathering the quilt and handing the bear back to her. "I'll be getting out of your hair then."

Penny's ultimately very confused though; she doesn't remember anyone getting into fights. She remembers an affectionate Amy finally landing a kiss on Sheldon, who looked aghast and horrified as he'd gone to brush his teeth and wash his mouth out with literal soap (before Bernadette had stopped him and pointed out that Listerine was just as effective and potentially less damaging to his skin cells).

Her memory's not that hazy, but she'd been distracted with Leonard in his room at that point. Her mind finally supplies it though; Howard asking if he could crash at her place because Bernadette's already gone—why didn't she say goodbye?

_No, no, no, things are normal, they're fine, they're going back to the way they were, just—_

Her brain stops, because she's helping Howard (who might still be a little drunk) out of the bathtub, and she sighs. Out of all of Leonard's friends, Howard genuinely frustrates and annoys her the most (with Sheldon leading a close second; Howard only wins because he doesn't always stop hitting on her), but she's still his friend, in their own way.

Which is why she sits him down at the kitchen island, and starts the coffee pot. When she comes out of her room again, she's wearing her bathrobe after checking on Leonard.

"Milk with your coffee?" she asks as the pot burbles, and she's relieved when he shakes his head silently (she'll just make do with a dollop of ice cream from the freezer—same principal, isn't it?)

She's definitely worried now—any comment involving milk would've gotten _something_ out of him for sure, but he's staring half-heartedly at her coffee table, and beginning to look like he'd rather be anywhere else than here.

Penny ties her hair up and away from her face, and pulls two mugs from the sink, where her clean dishes usually sat until she needed them. "So," she says, minding not to put too of a casual emphasis in her tone, "Mind catching me up?"

Howard doesn't say much at first, he's too busy glaring at the island where Penny's got the two mugs sitting.

She taps her fingers in a rolling motion. "Don't make me guess," she finally says, and there's a little more bite in her tone. The coffee pot burbles louder as it gets closer to being done. "I mean, I will, but you're not going to like the way I put it if I have to."

Howard shrugs. "Penny," he says, and his tone is so close to Sheldon's usual condescension that it makes her teeth grind, "While I like so _many_ of the things you do," the wink is ruined by the red of his eyes, "I really find this to be _none_ of your business. You were nice enough to let me crash in your tub." The smirk on his face is more of a wounded grimace than his usual confident grin. "I thank you, though I'd have rather crashed in your bed."

Penny rolls her eyes—that's a little closer to the Wolowitz she knows and hates. The coffee's done though, so she pours them both a cup and sets one down in front of him.

"We're friends," she finally says. "And friends help each other out, whether it's crashing in a bathtub or making sure you're not lying on your back when you pass out." She clinks her mug with his. "Now, what's the real deal?"

Howard doesn't say anything for a long time, and Penny wonders if he's going to. She's done with her first cup; he's nearly done with his when he finally does something besides sit there. He reaches into his pocket, and places something on the island under his hand so she can't see it.

"Thanks for the coffee, Penny, but I think I'll be going. I've got an angry bear beating my phone into battery death," Howard says, and he gets up, grabbing his hat from the bookshelf on his way out.

Penny's a little stunned into silence though—this _definitely_ requires more coffee.

Sitting on the kitchen island and catching a bit of light from the sun, is Bernadette's engagement ring.

_There's not a cracker big enough._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette's not confused about the fact that her stomach feels twisted and angry, or about why her hand feels a little lighter (but so do her shoulders). She is a little wary of why Amy's in Leonard's bed with her. They're both fully clothed though (Amy's still wearing her shoes even), and her head isn't fuzzy the way it's been the last few times she's gone out with the girls (or just with Penny).

Her mind is fairly clear. She'll own up to losing her temper with Howie—but honestly, she'd been sick of watching Penny all but suck face with Leonard once the blonde actress had gotten a little past buzzed. She was tired of the smug look Leonard kept shooting Howie and Raj (because Sheldon clearly didn't care; he'd booted up his laptop to play something online). So really, when Howie wanted to show Leonard "how it's done", she was more than a little put out. She's not a side-show; they're not a porn-couple.

Howie had been hurt, she remembers, but then Leonard had hammered the final nail in when he and Penny had started talking about making their party a little more private in and away from everyone else.

Bernadette's temper was frayed by that point, so Howie whining a little bit (because honestly, Howie got whiny when he was a little punch-drunk) about why _they_ couldn't be that affectionate and open had almost set her off.

And then Amy, brilliantly drunk Amy, had landed the kiss on Sheldon, who looked absolutely scandalized.

Howie, being Howie, was quick to point out that even _Sheldon_ was getting some—in _any_ permutation of the universe, that was just _wrong_.

That had been about the point when Bernadette handed him her ring (she'd wanted to shove it in his nose), and had locked herself in Leonard's bedroom; by the way Leonard was smugly grinning at everyone and Penny was half-stumbling towards the door, it looked like it'd be open.

Bernadette wipes a hand over her face, doesn't realize that she's made a wounded-sounding whimper until Amy pats her on the shoulder in a somewhat-patented-awkward-Amy way that almost makes Bernadette feel worse, because usually, it's Penny that she and Amy haul back from the brink.

"Sheldon tells me that "there, there" will generally elicit a comforted response in the affected individual," Amy offers. Her voice is groggy with sleep, and her face looks a little softer without her glasses on.

Bernadette's eyes are welling up before she can stop it. Amy's still sitting beside of her, still silent and quiet in only the way Amy can be sometimes.

"Would you care to talk about it? Or some hot tea maybe?" Amy asks.

Bernadette sniffles a little. "Tea would be nice." She doesn't get up, but Amy does, leaving her in the room by herself. In the fifteen minutes it takes for Amy to come back, she's managed to compose herself a little, smooth down the blue dress she's still wearing (the apron is hanging on Leonard's door beside his robe), and sit cross-legged where she's at, because she's got a feeling that if she doesn't talk, Amy's going to. She can cry by herself later, where it won't matter how god-awful-red her nose gets, and where Amy won't give a scientific explanation of how beneficial crying can be to the brain—it's not like Bernadette doesn't know, and, god willing, she's going to have a damn good cry when she's alone.

Amy returns, as expected, with two cups. "I've informed Sheldon that we'll be making use of Leonard's room for the time being."

Bernadette could've laughed at that—it sounds horrible, the way Amy says it, but it's technically true. She takes the cup from Amy though, and Amy sits in front of her, too close and too eager to gossip. She knows it's only because Amy's never had friends, and Bernadette's able to relate.

She blows on the hot tea; Amy's still staring at her expectantly, neither of them are wearing their glasses.

"Does this have to do with Howard's inappropriate behavior last night?" Amy asked. "I believe he was attempting to assert that the ardor of his relationship with you was greater than anyone else's in the room." Amy looks guilty for a moment, though Bernadette can't imagine why. "I would imagine that the unbridled show of passion between Sheldon and myself only made it worse. I'm sorry."

Bernadette pats Amy's knee. "There, there?" she tries.

Amy tilts her head. "I don't believe Sheldon is correct in his assessment of that particular aphorism."

"He tries," Bernadette offers weakly. "When he says that, it's as good as him calling the other person a butthead and kicking sand in their face."

Amy nods, as if putting it together in her head. "That, on the other hand, I would believe to be correct." She sips her tea. "He does make a mean cup of comfort tea though."

"Sheldon made this?"

"Well, mostly—he instructed me very strictly on how to prepare it properly. I wasn't wearing my glasses, as my hurry to attempt comforting you took greater precedence over accurate vision. I informed him that you were upset, and that I was in need of tea as a result."

Bernadette nods slowly, because honestly, Amy and Sheldon's relationship—is that what it is?—is just so darn surreal sometimes. "I'll thank him on my way out."

"So," Amy drawls, "You and Howard?"

Bernadette's quiet again as she drinks some of the tea now that it's cooled down a bit. "I just—" She stops, breathes, starts again. "I think sometimes he only asked me to marry him just _because_ it means he gets to have sex."

"You are worried that Howard has asked for your hand in an attempt to garner a permanent, regular means of intercourse and that it is only a relationship of convenience?" Amy picks, because she needs to put it in a way she can dissect more easily.

Bernadette nods. "Like…if it'd been anyone, he'd have still done it. Like he didn't ask _me_, he asked me because we've been dating for a long time, and…" The rest of her thought is too mean to herself; she doesn't want to say it.

Which is why she considers Amy her friend, because Amy will.

"He thinks you're the best he'll ever do," Amy deduces.

Bernadette nods. "So I gave him his ring back."

Amy gasps. "No!" She scoots closer, which makes Bernadette want to scoot away. "Frankly, I'd call him a primate, but I've worked with primates who exhibit more gentlemen behavior than that, and this is in consideration of their tendency to fling feces at each other during penile-swinging."

Bernadette does laugh at that. "It's just…" She's starting and stopping a lot this morning, but her heart feels like it's being jerked around, and she doesn't like it. She can't really tell Amy that any reason might've set her off to break it with Howard, that Penny's a recurring guest in her dreams, and Sheldon's made a couple of cameos himself. "I just don't want to marry someone because we think we can't do any better."

Amy sighs; she's not very good at this, and she's aware of it. "Bernadette," she tries, "If Wolowitz thinks you're the best he can do—" She taps her chin for a moment, as if searching for the right words, and completely unaware of the stricken look that's sliding across Bernadette's face, "Then he'd be right, but not in the fashion you're thinking. You're the one who deserves more respect and better treatment than what he has shown you the previous night." She rolls her fingers against her leg, as if continuing to search for the correct words that she wants. "What I'm attempting to convey is that while Wolowitz is correct in his assumption that you are the best he can do, it is more of a compliment in your favor than in his."

It makes Bernadette give a sigh of relief. The guilt isn't gone, because Amy can't know what's going on in her head unless she tells her, and Bernadette's planning on burying that so far down that even _God_ won't be able to find out.

Amy pats her shoulder again. "There, there," she says proudly, noticing that some of the abject misery has faded from Bernadette's face. "Now. Let's go get Penny and go for a calorie-laden breakfast."

Bernadette opts out though. "I think I just want to go home, take a shower—you know, just kind of normalize."

Amy nods understandingly. "Perhaps tonight then?"

"Maybe." She hugs Amy quickly; Amy's decided to lay back down, because, as Amy put it, it rather feels like Ricky's been pelting her with lighters and cigarettes all night, and she was only fighting it long enough to try and coax Bernadette into a better mood.

Bernadette can appreciate that, though. Amy had probably drank more than Penny or herself, and was probably feeling worse for the wear. Still, she'd managed to put things a bit into perspective, and Bernadette gives her another hug before she grabs her apron from the door and her shoes from the foot of the bed. She barely remembers to grab the teacup from the nightstand.

Just as Amy had said, Sheldon's in the kitchen, meticulously drying a bowl and spoon, though the movements are awkward, and there's plastic wrap around his cast. It's Sunday—Penny's mentioned before that typically, Sheldon awakes and gets his cereal to watch Dr. Who.

Sheldon glances at her warily when she comes out. "Amy informed me you were…upset," he says carefully, because he's had enough dealings with Penny to know that upset females can be volatile. "I trust you are feeling better after tea?"

Bernadette nods and puts the teacup into the sink. "It was good tea; thank you," she manages, and hates that her voice sounds so small.

Sheldon looks a little lost for a minute; it's not a look she's used to seeing on him. "There, there," he finally edges out, the words obviously not falling from his mouth easily. He reaches up in a jerky movement, but can't seem to bring himself to touch her.

It's enough though. Of all the people in the world who could've comforted her after this, Sheldon and Amy are two of the last people she'd ever expected to do so. It makes her eyes water up again, and she rubs at them irritably.

Sheldon looks a little more lost at this, and even a bit panicky. "Would another cup of tea help?" he asks quickly, and his voice is pitched a little higher than normal; he pulls the plastic wrap off his cast to keep himself busy.

Bernadette's been able to hold it back most of the time she's been awake, even through the conversation with Amy. She can feel the hysterics building a bit, and is a little terrified, because out of the two people she's not been able to get out of her head, she was certain that it'd have been _Penny_ who could crack her open and dissect her, not _Sheldon_.

Sheldon, who looks like he's going to flee any minute now. "Stay here, I'll get Amy," he finally says, and his voice is a little bit more normal, though still a little frantic.

"No, she's sleeping," Bernadette responds, and tries breathing deeply to get herself under control, because she doesn't want Sheldon freaking out. It makes her nervous, and she shifts, twists her hands into her apron, because she needs them to stay busy; otherwise, she'll do something incredibly stupid, like _hug_ the guy.

Sheldon shuffles awkwardly, but his eyes flick to her hands, and he grabs one of her wrists easily into his good hand, and the fingers of his other tug irritably on the other. "That's _not_ helping," he says, and this time, his voice is _all_ him. "I can request that Amy or Penny come here as I genuinely have little experience with crying females who are not related to me."

His touch burns on her skin, the cast is coarse and rough, and she bursts into tears, flinging her small arms around his waist.

It's this exact scene that Penny comes into, Bernadette's wedding ring clutched in her fist. Her mouth drops open as Sheldon sees her, and for once, does not berate her lack of knocking.

"Oh, good; it's Penny," Sheldon yelps, and physically pulls Bernadette's arms from around his waist. He turns her around, and pushes her firmly by her shoulders towards Penny, using his cast for good measure as a bit of force. "Penny, Bernadette requires your assistance, as you two are, to use a colloquial, "homegirls"."

Penny pulls a sobbing Bernadette into her arms, Sheldon's hands are still caught on the shorter girl's shoulders. He looks like he'd rather be _anywhere_ other than where he's at right now, but then Penny holds up something for him to see as Bernadette buries her face into Penny's chest. Penny envelops her, arms snaking up so her hands can rub circles into Bernadette's shoulder blades.

The ring is glinting at him a bit mockingly.

Sheldon grimaces. He _knew_ it—Leonard and Koothrappali now owed him fifty dollars apiece—beyond that, he'd _known_ that was the sound of a couple breaking up. He only knew it because he'd heard Leonard and Penny almost break up enough times to be able to tell the difference between an end and a fight. The quote comes unbidden to his head, and his hands don't lower from Bernadette's shoulders as they shake beneath his fingers.

_This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper._

He's usually quite fond of Eliot, to be perfectly honest—but at the moment, the quote tastes bitter and cynical, and he squeezes Bernadette's shoulders out of reflex to filter it from getting out.

Penny's fingers twitch beneath his, brush against his own before linking slightly.

It's easier to look at it from a physics standpoint then from Frost's—there are two lines in which the universe will split from this moment into an infinite number of directions, with any one direction splintering into an infinite number more.

In one of them, Penny's going to convince Bernadette to talk to Howard, maybe try and make amends, but not to settle, and Sheldon's going to push the memory of this morning away into the box of things that've been happening all week, and Penny's going to attempt to forget all together by drowning herself in ethanol molecules tonight.

In another, Penny kisses Bernadette's tears away, Sheldon tells her it's alright instead of "there, there", and slides his long arms around them both.

In yet another, Sheldon's already panicked and fled the room, and Bernadette's already made plans to transfer to another laboratory.

Any number of those roads are easy, well-traveled, well-documented.

In this universe, however, the three of them simply stand there because moving would mean the spell might be broken, and as much as humans will always find the path of least resistance, the universe doesn't always take into account the stubborn nature of the human condition.

All of these possibilities and more have run through Sheldon's head, and he's not sure how to even _begin_ processing the data, uncertain of what to do with it now that the information has become exponentially murkier because of it. It makes his fingers shake, and he stops them with a mental slap to his brain.

Between their linked fingers, Sheldon can feel the sharp stone of a ring; remembers Bernadette handing it to Wolowitz. His fingers tighten slightly, and Penny sighs.

"Hey, Sheldon…don't you have the original Michael Keaton Batman movies?" Penny asks.

Sheldon snorts. "Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?"

Bernadette sniffles suddenly. "That's from X-Men, not Batman."

Penny finally pulls away, wipes Bernadette's face with the sleeve of her jacket. "We did Marvel movies last time; I thought we'd go DC."

Bernadette considers for a moment. Sheldon's already digging said-movies out, because now that Penny's offered it up, he's going to do it, regardless of the company. She sighs, and agrees, so long as Penny lets her use her shower.

Sheldon fruitlessly ignores their chatter, but their voices are drifting pleasantly over his ears despite his best efforts. He's stacking DVDs into his hands (minus the Joel Schumaker version starring George Clooney—he refuses to have that in his apartment, lest it taint the souls of all who enter), and he stops for a fraction of a moment, and glances at Penny and Bernadette, the taller of which is speaking quietly and comfortingly, stroking a hand over Bernadette's face with a smile.

The corner of his mouth tips up imperceptibly. This particular split in the strings of the universe is not the one he would've expected to take, but he can appreciate the difference it is going to make.

Penny smiles at him briefly as he stands.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	8. The DC Contraindication

Leonard ends up joining them for the movies, and his curiosity is immediately running full-speed when he notes Bernadette's presence, but not Howard's. Penny only says that Howard had crashed in her tub (_say what?_) and that she thinks they all need a shower (at least to get the Halloween gunk off and to rinse away any "party residue"—he'll have to use that in a joke at some point, because it's sort of true).

He's not above asking Sheldon, who's combing through his—arguably large—collection of DC-universe DVDs. He also knows that Sheldon's incapable of using a verbal filter without looking like he has a case of sudden-onset-Tourette's Syndrome.

"Bernadette's hanging out today?" Leonard asks, because he wants to ease in subtly—he wasn't so drunk last night that he missed the tension between Howard and his fiancé.

Sheldon, however, is never subtle, and gives a suffering-sigh. "It is sci-fi marathon day, as per the usual schedule—honestly, Leonard, one would think you would know that by now—and Bernadette's attendance would have been likely via Wolowitz." He narrows his eyes at Leonard. "Weren't you going to shower?"

Leonard nods. "Yeah, in a minute. Where are Howard and Raj anyway?"

Sheldon—admittedly—doesn't pick up on much that isn't said bluntly; he doesn't care for statements that require deduction or inference. He's not, however, so socially inept that he's reasonably certain Bernadette would not appreciate people speaking of her relationship troubles without her knowledge. In point of fact, he's certain within 98.7% that she would be rather angry.

His cheek muscle tics, but he responds smoothly, "Wolowitz and Koothrappali are likely sleeping away the effects of being overly inebriated, as is Amy Farrah Fowler. I do not expect any of their attendance, with the possible exception of the latter of the three." He tilts his head at Leonard. "By the by, Amy is in your room; you may wish to tread lightly."

Leonard groans, and the inconvenience takes precedence over his curiosity.

Penny waits patiently in her kitchen, working on her third cup of coffee as she absently French-braids her damp hair, and wonders if Bernadette will want some when she gets out of the shower. Penny had passed Leonard on her way out 4A, and put on her best hangover act to keep him from asking her or Bernadette too many questions.

Her lips curved—he was gonna have fun when he realized Amy was in his bed. Her phone vibrated, and she absently checked the message from Leonard.

_Amy and Bern slept in my bed last night how did i miss that?_

She rolls her eyes, because she's got the feeling it wouldn't have mattered _who_ passed out in his bed, so long as it was two girls. It reminds her disconcertingly of Kurt.

_maybe bc u were 2 busy w me 3_

She hears the shower shut off, and looks up. "Clean clothes in the laundry basket in the floor!" she shouts, because she knows her room's a disaster. Her phone buzzes again.

_2 completely diff things_

She frowns.

_what's that supposed to mean_

Bernadette comes out of her room, looking younger without her make-up and a little tired. She notes the look on Penny's face, winces internally.

98% of the male population would all have interpreted that look as "shut up and apologize _now_". Leonard, however, isn't present, and sees nothing.

Movie day, while starting off as a somewhat exciting idea, ends up being tense and uncomfortable by mid-day—so much so that by then, Sheldon and Amy are the only ones still watching.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"She'll come around," Howard says the next day at lunch in the university cafeteria, though the confidence seems to be absent from his voice. It's just him and Raj so far, but Leonard (who's finally off nights again) and Sheldon are on their way.

Raj shrugs. "She just now forgave you for the troll, dude. You might want to give it some time."

"Time, I've got plenty of." Howard pushes at his salad a little. "Besides, she spent half the day watching DC movies with Sheldon and Leonard; she's probably missing me like crazy after that." He leans forward over the table. "Not to mention she spent the night with Amy,"—he waggled his eyebrows—"As awesome as _that_ could've been, it's still Amy, who's—y'know—basically Sheldon."

Raj huffs a little—he's come to terms with most things concerning Bernadette, but that doesn't make him any less fond of her. "Dude, she gave you your ring back. Maybe you should act like it."

Howard sighs, looks a little chagrined. "You think I don't know that?" He leans back in his seat, hunches his shoulders a little. "It's what we do though—we have fights, we make up."

Raj finds it prudent to avoid pointing out that a good deal of the time, it's Howard's behavior that causes most of the issues that turn into fights. He's decided to hell with it, he's telling Howard (they're friends; it's what friends _do_), but Leonard's tray slapping the table surprises him away from it.

"Finally back to days?" Howard asks.

"This week, yeah. Leslie's turn for nights." His reply is curt, and it's clear that he doesn't want to talk.

"So…" Howard trails. "How was Bernadette yesterday? Did she say anything? Did she ask about me? Was she upset?"

Raj can see the dangerous play of emotion over Leonard's face, prepares to kick Howard to shut him up. Leonard's face suddenly clears, and Raj thinks the way it does so almost has too _much_ calm to it. Raj doesn't like it, whatever it is, and prepares to take his tray away to avoid whatever's coming.

"She was too busy watching movies with Sheldon and asking him about the DC-verse," Leonard says—which, it had been more Penny than Bernadette, but they'd both asked questions; he's projecting the issue either way—in for a penny, in for a pound. "She seemed really into it." He stabs his spaghetti and meatballs viciously, because seriously, Howard had looked like a lost puppy when asking after Bernadette, and he had a right to know.

Leonard's not stupid—something was going on; he just couldn't quite figure it out.

Every man on the planet knows that two girls is in the top three fantasies for guys—hell, Leonard's pretty sure that even most _girls_ know that—he hadn't expected Penny to get so bent over it.

His mother's voice is pointing out that misery loves company, and he's just making company right now.

Howard narrows his gaze. "Bernie's not into comic books."

Leonard shrugs, ignoring the way Raj was looking at him suspiciously. "You wouldn't know, the way she was talking to Sheldon about it."

Sheldon joins them last, sitting down and pulling his own silverware out. "Hello, gentleman. I trust we've all recuperated from the weekend's festivities?"

Leonard sort of wishes he hadn't stoked the fire quite so much, because Howard stiffly gets to his feet and dumps his glass of water into Sheldon's shirt.

The regret doesn't stop him from taking a picture with his cell phone.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny's officially not speaking to him when he gets home. She was mad before, but communicating a little (however curtly)—now, however, she's furious.

Part of it's probably that she was the one Sheldon called to come and pick him up so he could go home and change, and this happened while she was at work. The other part was definitely because she'd seen the picture on Leonard's facebook page, and then noted it had been shared by Howard.

Leonard's expecting to get an earful (hoping, because then they'll make up and things might get back to where they were before). He's surprised when he gets nothing at all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny calls no one after depositing Sheldon back at the university; she turns her phone off all together, intent on separating herself from her usual social life of Halo, Thai, and anything related to anyone across the hall. She tells herself it's because she begins filming soon, and she wants to give this her all, whether the pilot gets picked up or not. She's already got the time off from the Cheesecake Factory, and she's lined up other auditions during the times she won't be filming. She's already talked to one of the producers, spent the better part of her day today reading and re-reading the contract. She really wants to give it to Sheldon, but that would require her setting foot in 4A.

She chews her lower lip, the words of her contract are blurring before her eyes. She's got to have it back at the studio tomorrow morning, signed by her, but she's still not sure she's really getting all of the legal jargon. She swears—all of this damn paperwork for only a week—maybe two tops—of filming? Her phone is still off, and she looks warily at the door. She's nearly out of her apartment to ask when she hears Amy's voice drifting up the stairs.

_Perfect_.

"Amy!" Penny calls out after opening her door. "I could really use your help right about now."

Amy looks up from her conversation with Sheldon, whom Penny hadn't expected to be with her. He is all the same though; he looks a little tired. She frowns at that—she says nothing though, and tugs on Amy's arm.

"I really need you to look at this thing for me," Penny says, injecting just enough panic in her voice to get Amy to look at it immediately.

"Oh, bestie…I would _love_ to help you," Amy says, and Penny can already hear a bit of the apology in her voice, "But I would recommend retaining a lawyer; my legalese isn't up to par enough for me to tell you what is and isn't acceptable in a performance contract."

Sheldon takes it from Amy with an exasperated sigh. "Really, Amy? Ricky could understand this, and he _smokes_."

"That's hardly a fair assessment," Amy responds good-naturedly enough. "Ricky is a completely different species. Given your penchant for contracts and agreements, it is unsurprising that your understanding of legalese is greater than the average homo sapien."

Sheldon concedes the point. "Agreed." He's still flipping through it with a frown.

"Well, would _you_ look at it then?" Penny finally asks.

Sheldon raises an eyebrow.

Penny sighs, rolls her eyes. "_Please_?"

"Under the agreement that you no longer call me Moonpie, you knock when you wish to enter the apartment, and you refrain from any other such distracting behavior that could become a disruption to one's schedule," Sheldon spouts off quickly.

Penny snorts. "I'll stop calling you Moonpie for a week, I can't promise to knock if it's before 11AM, and how the hell am I supposed to know what would and wouldn't be a disruption or distraction to you? I'm not _you_."

Sheldon considers. "Make it a month, people who were raised right know to knock, and point taken."

Penny glares at him. "Two weeks, _watch it_, and are you really surprised? I listen sometimes when you guys talk logic."

"Make it three weeks. I was making an observation, not an insult, and I'm rather surprised that you would retain much more than whatever food we were serving that night."

"Two and a half; your observation was insulting to not only me but my parents as well, and again—_watch it_."

Sheldon sighs.

Amy watches the play-by-play as a third party, and is intrigued. "Do you mind if I join you two whilst Sheldon reads your contract, Penny?" she asks on impulse.

Penny looks at her, as if she'd forgotten Amy were even there. "Yeah, sure. It's Thai night, isn't it?"

"Seems like every night is Thai night, sometimes," Amy accedes, but Sheldon's nodding.

"Well…how about we order in then, and Sheldon can look over my contract, and Amy and I can do some girl-talk?" Penny offers up, seemingly forgetting about her promise to interact with no one.

On the other hand, she doesn't have a problem with Amy or Sheldon, per se—not the way she does with Wolowitz and Leonard. Even Raj a little, because he'd bloody well let it happen.

Sheldon sighs. "As long as we conduct this business in _my_ apartment, I see no issue."

Penny grimaces, and snatches her contract back. "Thanks anyway." She begins to turn when Sheldon's voice stops her.

"Penny, I'm given to think that you are reluctant to come over because you do not wish to see or speak to Leonard; he is dining with Koothrappali and Wolowitz tonight. It was originally only to be Amy and I, but I see no reason to not have your attendance as well." He grins dryly. "You know how crazy Amy and I can get with Counterfactuals."

"Oh yeah," Penny responds blithely. "Totally insane." She considers for a moment, and then slips her flipflops on before shutting her door behind her. "Lead the way, crazy people."

Amy links her arm with Penny's conspiratorially. "Oh, crazy is too mild, bestie. You just wait!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

This is what Leonard comes back to; Sheldon's peering over the contract for some part Penny had been excited about during the party, and Penny and Amy are playing Counterfactuals (say _what_?).

"Penny, there's very few provisions on what your per-episode pay will be if the pilot you will be filming for gets picked up by a network," Sheldon scolds, his voice disapproving. "They've a flat rate, and it's not a very good one, if my research is any indication."

Penny looks up from her steamed dumplings and pot stickers (she's more into finger foods than actual entrees) and Amy's digging into chicken satay; Sheldon's in his spot, picking carefully through his mee krob, with a stack of paperwork in front of him.

"My manager said that's just because they don't know anything yet," Penny says around a cheek of spring roll. "Besides, you know just as well as anyone else that even if it does get picked up, they change up the casting sometimes."

"Would you kindly refrain from speaking while masticating your food?" Sheldon snorts derisively. "Might I point out that you got this role by finding out about the audition yourself? Do you really have that much faith in your manager to have the ability to oversee your contractual obligations in your best interest versus his own?"

Penny shrugs. "I guess not."

"Trust me. Ask for more money." Sheldon turns back to his desk, and sees Leonard on the way. "Hello, Leonard. I was under the impression you were dining with Koothrappali and Wolowitz tonight; we did not order your usual."

Leonard shrugs. "Not hungry. I'm going to bed." He stalks past them, sliding a narrow-eyed glare in Penny's general direction before exiting to his room.

Sheldon looks a little bewildered. "It's only six-fifteen!" he calls down the hallway, but doesn't receive an answer. "_Rude_," he mutters, and looks back at Penny's contract.

Penny glares after him, because even though Sheldon looks annoyed, she can see the barest tip of hurt there too. "Well," she says a little loudly, "Not everyone can be as polite and accommodating as you."

Leonard hears it; he was meant to and he knows it. Penny knows damn well how far and how much her voice will carry in any given room; she is, after all, an actress. His hands itch, his fingers tremble a bit. It's suddenly not enough that he can see the way things are playing out between Sheldon and Penny, their easy banter, their constant (if unfailing) bickering.

He's still confused; Howard and Bernadette have something to do with this, other than the fact that Howard's in the doghouse right now too. It's like a particularly annoying puzzle that he wants to figure out, but can't. He knows that he should be able to—

He just can't.

Leonard sighs. Anger of an uncontrollable event is a fallback, honesty when calculating a situation sits on the back-burner.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette looks reluctantly at her phone and grows a little more irritated. Penny's moving around the room a big sluggishly, Amy's sitting beside of her, and Howard _won't stop texting her_. It's not like she's been maintaining radio silence with him, but at the same time, he's been sending her "I'm Sorry" style e-cards almost nonstop the entire week.

It'd gotten to the point where she simply turned the thing off before leaving it in her locker at work (which had earned her a forty-five-minute lecture from her mother on the dangers of not having a viable means of communication in her career). Bernadette sighs, takes the bottle of water that Penny hands off to her and Amy.

"So?" Bernadette asks brightly. "How's filming?"

Penny shrugs; there's circles beneath her eyes. "_Exhausting_," she finally blurts out, and looks irritated with herself. She rubs the heel of her hand over her eyes. "I'd lined up some other things to audition for while I was doing this filming, but I'm not going to have time to do it. I knew the days would be long—but we filmed for sixteen _hours_ yesterday. _Sixteen_."

Amy nods sympathetically. "I know animals who spend the same number of hours in a day sleeping."

Penny's not sure whether to be insulted or not, but Amy's hardly malicious. "It's not even that what I'm _doing_ is really all that hard," she says after a minute of thought. "It's a lot of walking around, waiting, watching other people film…my part was really small to begin with." She doesn't mention that she's pretty sure this thing isn't going to get picked up by anyone with half a brain—the writers are terrible.

Bernadette shrugs. "Sometimes, sitting around and doing nothing is just as tiring as anything else," she offers up. "It's because it's not your usual routine, and you're not at home or work."

Penny nods, but it's kind of upended her entire career wishes. "I don't know if I'm cut out for this," she finally admits quietly, fingers soaking up the condensation on her water bottle. "I mean, this is what I came here for."

"If anyone can do it, you can, bestie," Amy replies firmly. "Enough of that self-doubt."

Penny nods; she thinks she probably just needs a good night's sleep. She hasn't eaten dinner yet, and is pretty sure that once she does, she's going to be dead to the world.

Bernadette nods her agreement with Amy. "You'll see, Penny. You're just not used to it is all," she says kindly, and pats her on the knee. "It just seems hard right now because you're tired and fighting with Leonard."

It's a direct probe; they both know it, and Penny grimaces.

"We're not fighting," Penny eases out, and thinks Bernadette's fingers tighten on her knee. "He said something insensitive and stupid; I overreacted, but it doesn't change the fact that he was wrong in the first place."

Amy sighs. "It sounds as if you and Leonard are at an impasse," she comments. "If neither of you are willing to communicate and talk the issue out, then how will you fix it?"

Penny doesn't say anything at first, because she's not sure she wants to fix it.

"The same would go for you and Howard, Bernadette," Amy says, and doesn't seem to notice much that Bernadette's gaze has turned a little icy.

"It's different with Howie right now," Bernadette finally says, and her voice isn't as cheerful as before. "What about you and Sheldon? Have you gotten him to be your boyfriend?"

Amy holds up a hand. "That _is_ different; I have no desire at this point in time to make Sheldon my official boyfriend—our relationship is intellectual, and we are both happy with that. Additionally, I have someone to take home to Mother when her desires for potential grandchildren get to be too much in her post-menopausal state." She grins dryly. "We both enjoy this the way it is; we see no reason to change, ergo: my relationship with Sheldon is wholly different than your former one with Howard, and Penny's shaky one with Leonard."

"Leonard and I have a lot of history," Penny points out.

"Leonard has mommy-issues," Bernadette says, and her voice must've sounded meaner than she thought, because Penny and Amy are both staring at her. She shrugs it off. "Well, Howie and Leonard both have them—just for different reasons."

Amy's quiet as Penny and Bernadette discuss boys with any sort of issues pertaining to their mothers. She places her chin on her hand thoughtfully, because Bernadette's hand has been on Penny's knee this entire time, her small fingers never leaving the rounded bone. The banter between the two women is easier than Sheldon and Penny, mostly because there's no fighting, no competition for domination. It's all gentle conversation, but firm and steady truths.

Amy's quite fond of working people out. She's not very good at reading social cues, she knows—it doesn't stop her from trying to deduce interpersonal relationships on a more implicative level. They're fascinating to her, the way people weave in and out of each other's lives. The biggest similarity between the way Penny interacts with Sheldon and how she interacts with Bernadette is that she's extraordinarily honest with the two of them, holding nothing back and expecting the same courtesy in return. It makes her brain think a bit, and she decides to hold off for now until she can see Penny talk to both of them at the same time.

Her watch beeps at her, and she sighs. "Well, ladies," she says, and notes that they both jump slightly, as if they'd forgotten she were there—that's fine, she's actually sort of used to that—she smiles at them. "I would love to stay for dinner, but there's a lab report to write for a set of tissue samples I'd examined a few weeks ago—my toxicology reports came in this afternoon."

"Aw, come on, Ames. We were getting ready to order pizza," Penny replies, but it's a bit half-hearted.

Amy shakes her head, gets to her feet. "Enjoy; it is Anything-Can-Happen-Thursday, if I'm thinking correctly. Perhaps we can take it up this weekend," she offers.

Penny nods, flops back into her chair. "If I'm not dead by then," she groans, and waves to Amy on her way out.

Bernadette offers the same. "See you later!"

Amy quietly watches still as Bernadette once again places a hand on Penny's knee. Her fingers are tightened, and Penny's listening to her as the shorter girl talks in encouraging tones. One of Bernadette's hands comes up to slowly run down the length of Penny's hair, fingertips just barely brushing the skin.

Amy quirks a grin as she exits the room. She quotes Sheldon fairly often, because he has a way of putting things that pretty well sum it up. This one is no different.

_Fascinating._


	9. The Ebola Mortality Exclusion Principal

Bernadette says very little as Howard talks. It's more _at_ her than _to_ her, and she's not afraid to admit that she finds the way her balsamic vinaigrette dressing is swirling is more interesting right now than what he has to say. She doesn't know why it's suddenly the same tired excuses falling on her ears, though his voice is always just as eager and apologetic.

"You really embarrassed me, Howie," she says, and doesn't like the way his eyes light hopefully at the nickname—it was more force of habit than anything else. "We're better than that; we respect each other more than that—at least, I thought we did."

He's talking again, and once more, she zones out. It's going nowhere, and it's going nowhere _fast_. She really hates this part—she waits for him to finish all the same, mostly because she still isn't sure what she's going to say or even how she's going to say it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny says a lot when she and Leonard finally agree to meet (she's very careful—she makes it a lunch date). She's okay with admitting that she'd overreacted; after all, she's not stupid—she knows it was just a joke. She's not okay with how grating his voice sounds to her own ears, how it's making her grind her teeth to hold her temper. She's not afraid to admit that she feels like she's just _looking_ for excuses to end this beta test.

"Why are we even fighting about this? I said something stupid, you just overreacted a bit is all," Leonard tries again, but it comes out petulant, and as if he's accusing her of being more wrong than he is.

Penny looks at him, takes a deep, calming breath as he continues on. She'll wait for him to finish, because this is going to _suck_, mostly because she knows _exactly_ what she's going to say, and how she's going to say it—it's not a familiar feeling lately for her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Amy smiles a little kindly at Sheldon's confused face. He really doesn't know why she's making the distinction between their intellectual relationship and their potential romantic endeavors (well, strike-through on the potential; that's why she's talking to him). It's important, though, because he needs to know that she might be looking elsewhere.

"I'm not entirely sure why you feel the desire to focus on a clarification that hardly needs clearing up," he says smartly. "I'm simply…surprised." He keeps going—Amy waits for him to finish.

Amy breathes a little—she hadn't honestly thought Sheldon was entangled with the idea of a romantic relationship. It sucks a little—she'd kind of wanted one—but that's why she's doing this, because for once, they're able to be on the exact same page.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny uses all of the stress and anxiety to her benefit, pouring herself into the filming. It's almost over—and she's still got that sinking feeling that she's just thrown 2 weeks of her life away on a pilot that won't get picked up—and even if it _does_, she's got a nasty feeling that they're going to switch up at _least_ half the cast.

Honestly, it's not really her fault that she's got no chemistry with one of the guys playing one of the lab techs. His name is Alex—he's handsome enough, she supposes—but just this side of asshole when he's not on camera that it bleeds into her opinion of him _on_ camera.

Penny's flipping through the last part of her script; she's only got two days left on set. She's munching on an apple, and steadfastly ignores Alex's attempts to get her attention at the doughnut table. She pretends to be engrossed in the pages, though she already knows the lines.

It's just her luck that Alex decides to come over, boston crème doughnut in his mouth and a powdered-sugar jelly one in his hand for her.

"Doughnut?" he asks with his mouth full.

Penny holds up her apple. "I'm good, thanks," she says breezily.

Alex doesn't take the hint and sits down beside of her, all smiles. "You've got the right idea," he says easily, but there's just enough edge to his tone that Penny's already on guard. "Last pilot I worked on, the lead was a little…lighter, if you catch my drift."

"A primate could've caught your drift. Fuck off." The language was harsh, but then again, Alex was…well, Alex.

He snorted. "Only if you come with," he wags his eyebrows in a way he probably thinks his charming; Penny thinks it looks like seizing caterpillars on his face, "Besides, if you be a little nicer, I'll introduce you to my dad—he's the one producing this show, and pretty much in charge of who stays and goes when it gets picked up."

Penny raises an eyebrow. "Is he the one who picked the writers?" she asks, injecting genuine curiosity into her tone.

Alex shrugs. "How the hell should I know? Probably."

Penny snorts. "I don't need your dad's help then; he blows more than you did to get this part." She throws her apple core away and begins walking off purposefully towards wardrobe.

"Not as much as you do to pay your bills," Alex shouts after her.

Penny feels her spine straighten a little; hates that he probably saw it too. At the same time, however, she keeps walking with the same stride, because she's dealt with worse customers on a _good_ day than this kid.

It's when the director comes by and asks her if she had _really_ been talking shit not only _about_ the producer, but _to_ the producer's son that the first tremor runs through her stomach. She keeps it together as the director yells at her.

The stress is running a line of vinegar through her blood today though, and she's never been one to keep her mouth shut—it's not like she doesn't have a decent job with the Cheesecake Factory. It may not be a _great_ job, _or_ the one she really wants, but she's not going to stand around and be called a stupid blonde slut with less talent than a monkey.

She doesn't either—she tells the director the exact same thing, throws the script at Alex's face (it doesn't hit him hard, but the way he's whining, you'd think it'd broken his nose), and calmly walks off the set. Her contract guarantees her pay for any of the work she has done (_thank you, Sheldon_) regardless of whether or not the pilot gets picked up, so that nice tidy check in her bank account isn't going anywhere—she did film nearly all of the part she'd auditioned for.

It's why she's smiling as she heads to her car.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette's stomach is hurting with how hard she's laughing. "You really did that?"

Penny looks a little worse for the wear by this point though. It didn't occur to her until she was telling Bernadette what had happened that she might've just _seriously_ screwed herself in the acting business, and she's really starting to regret everything.

"I'm proud of you!" Bernadette says though, and Penny smiles under her praise.

"What if I can't get anything else now though?" Penny asks a little seriously, because it's the only question really running through her head.

Bernadette's had a little bit of wine, and it's starting to show. She grasps Penny's hands tightly in her own smaller ones. "Penny," she says, and while it doesn't hold the same patronization that Sheldon's does, the inflection still reminds Penny of him, "You're smart, and pretty, and fun, and you bust your buns at everything you do." She grins wryly. "Besides cleaning your apartment."

Penny laughs weakly. "Thanks for that." The laughter stops immediately when Bernadette's hands curl around her face instead.

"That being said," Bernadette goes on primly, "You will find something—you may not even know what it's going to be—but you'll find something where you don't have to put up with that kind of BS."

Bernadette's hands are soft and cool on her heated skin, and it's making Penny just dizzy enough that she grasps the shorter girl's wrists in her own as an anchor.

"Relationships are a lot like jobs sometimes," Bernadette says, and her thumb twitches against Penny's face in mimicry of stroking. "There's some things you _have_ to take, because it's your job." Her thumb jerks again; Penny's not sure if it's on purpose or not. "Other things you take because you let yourself."

Penny's fingers tighten around Bernadette's wrists. Bernadette's eyes are incredibly blue right now, different than the paler shade of Sheldon's—more like the sky in Nebraskan winter, where it almost hurts to look at it.

"You'll find something," Bernadette repeats, and Penny realizes she's said nothing since Bernadette started talking, and she's looking a little worried.

"Yeah?" Penny asks—it's not really what she means to ask _at all_, but it's the only thing that comes out.

Bernadette's heart gives a little ache at the vulnerability in Penny's voice. "Of course," she chimes, and impulsively grazes her lips against Penny's forehead, like a mother might a child.

But Penny's breath sucks in tightly, and Bernadette freezes in the middle of the action. Penny's skin is hot and flushed beneath her mouth, her hands are tight around her wrists. There's a million thoughts tumbling through her brain right now—the only one Bernadette's focused on is the memory from the hospital bathroom, the one they never talked about.

And it's the one that makes her back away a little, because Penny had made herself pretty clear that night—she's not into it.

Except Penny's lips are currently slanted against her own suddenly, soft and damp and stained with wine. Bernadette squeaks a little, because the grip on her wrists is so tight it almost hurts, but _holy St. Agnes_, she doesn't care, doesn't care _at all_. It's like electricity's run her entire system to the couch, and she's frozen in her spot because she can't think, can't breathe.

She does the only thing she wants to do, the only thing she thinks she _can_ do at this point—she kisses Penny back for all she's worth, noting how different Penny's mouth feels against her own, the softer hands on her skin, how Penny smells like candles and wine and perfume—

Penny yanks back suddenly, as if she's been burned.

Bernadette just stares at her, wonders if she's done something wrong. Then the shock reels through her system—does she even _swing_ this way, how much wine has she had, maybe she should call her sister, Sam, maybe she should just go home, maybe she should've let Howie apologize, her parents are _never_ going to speak to her again, is that even really a bad thing—

"I'm sorry," Penny mutters, embarrassment and shame thick in her tone and unfamiliar to Bernadette's ears. "Must've drank more than I thought."

Bernadette realizes her face looks horrified, but she's having trouble finding her voice. Penny's already picking up a little bit, something she _never_ does, and shuffles over to the sink to wash the glasses out.

"Some food might help," Penny finally says a minute later, false cheer in her tone. "Soak up some of that wine."

Bernadette takes a deep breath, tries to calm her racing heart. She gets up, listening to Penny's near-hysterical chatter. On impulse and without thinking about what she's going to do, she laces her arms around Penny's waist from behind.

Penny's chirping stops immediately; she sounds like she's choked on her words. "What are you doing?" she finally asks so softly that Bernadette's not sure she's heard it.

She did though, and tightens her arms around Penny's waist. "Isn't it obvious?" she asks.

But it's not, and Penny's hands are wet from washing, and Bernadette can feel goosebumps—are those hers or Penny's?—can feel that they're both shaking a little.

"I think we're both a little stressed right now," Penny says carefully, and it's that same stuttered tone that says she's struggling to pick her words carefully. "And we've both had some wine to drink." Her shoulders droop a little, her head drops. "I think we should probably just call it a night."

"But—"

Penny's back stiffens against Bernadette's chest, but she doesn't turn. Christ on a cracker, she wants to, she wants to do a _lot_ of things right now—but most of all, she doesn't want to be someone's mistake. She's already made such a mess of things with Leonard—she can't lose one of her best friends in the mix as well just because she's on the rebound.

Penny's about to say as much when there's a knock on the door, and Amy breezes in.

"Got your text, bestie," Amy sing-songs out, and watches the way Bernadette's scooting quickly from the kitchen area, her face reddened and her features a bit tense. Penny is at the sink, all stiff posture—she almost looks like if someone comes near her, she'll run.

Bernadette's quiet on the couch as Penny's stature suddenly eases; she turns with a weak smile.

"Yeah…just so long as I can work again, it should work out," Penny offers up, and holds up her cell phone. "Who wants Thai?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Howard reaches Leonard's room, the strains of Five for Fighting are dying out, only to be replaced by Young Love. He grimaces, because he's pretty sure he knows what that means. If Leonard breaks out Chiodos or Death Cab for Cutie though, there's gonna be _words_.

All the same, Howard knocks on Leonard's door loudly, because the music's volume is pretty high, and he's not entirely sure that Leonard's going to hear it. When there's no answer, he sighs.

Sheldon's walking out of the bathroom, and glances at Howard with a raised eyebrow. "I would think even someone with a master's degree would know that the volume of his music would be directly related to how loudly you would need to knock in order for him to hear."

Howard rolls his eyes. "Keep it up; you'll miss the opening for Falling Skies."

Sheldon shrugs. "It's going to be on all day." He walks briskly over to Leonard's door, and raps his cast on it as hard as he can.

The noise is pretty loud; Howard gives him that.

Sheldon turns back to him. "If you'll excuse me, I'm not watching the Falling Skies marathon today; I'm having my cast removed." He turns and walks off just as Leonard opens the door.

Howard winces a little. "She dumped you, huh?"

Leonard shrugs, leans against the doorjamb. "I'd rather not talk about it, if it's all the same to you."

Howard holds his hands up. "_Testy_," he drawls. "Raj's waiting in the living room; we're going out."

Leonard snorts. "How's _Bernie_ feel about that?"

Howard shrugs. "She thinks it's nice that I'm trying to help my _friend_," he replies. "And it's not like we're going to a strip club or bar; we're going to do the comic book store, dinner, that penny arcade that Sheldon won't go near, and a midnight showing of _Night of the Living Dead_ at the two-dollar theater Sheldon refuses to go to."

Leonard screws his nose up. "She didn't break up with you?"

Howard laughs a bit awkwardly. "No, of course not! We have problems—but she took the ring back, and said she needed some time to think is all." He winds an arm around Leonard's shoulders, walks him back into the bedroom. "It's a good sign. Now—get some shoes on, lose the emo shirt, and let's _go_."

Leonard sighs; he's already sitting down to throw his converses on though. "I don't really want to go anywhere," he tries again.

Howard turns off the music when Death Cab for Cutie comes on. That cinched it. "You're going out. Come _on_."

Raj is waiting in the hallway when Howard shuts the door behind him, leaving Leonard alone to change. Raj looks like he's got big gossip, and he's practically bouncing in place.

"What?" Howard asks when he's pretty sure Raj might explode. "You look like you're on crack."

Raj ignores the blithe tone. "Do you know who's taking Sheldon to get his cast taken off?"

Howard shrugs, eyes squinted a bit as he tries to decide why he should care. He instead asks as much. "Who even cares? He probably called his home planet for a ride."

"Dude," Raj rolls his eyes, "_Bernadette's_ taking him."

Howard does turn at that, and shrugs off the weird chill that'd run through his heart. "She's a sweetheart, Bernie. She'll do the little things so others don't have to. We all know what a chore Sheldon is, especially with anything related to a medical problem." He laughs, but it sounds wrong, like he's forcing it through a tiny whistle. He snaps his fingers. "Besides, Penny was groaning about having to do it yesterday."

Raj shrugs. "Maybe something came up."

Howard quirks the corner of his mouth up. "Boy, I bet Penny's gonna owe her _forever_ for that."

"Owe who for what?" Leonard asks as he comes out of the room.

Howard turns. "Oh, just someone in the engineering department—they bet I couldn't a robotic hand to bitch slap them with enough force to knock them out, and what do you know—give me a small tube to throw a bit of laughing gas with said robot, and bam: knocked out."

The lie rolls smoothly from Howard's mouth, just as Leonard smiles and shrugs on his jacket, agreeing that a night out is just what the doctor ordered.

Raj wonders a lot of things—he mostly keeps them to himself, but he'll be more than happy to tell them that it's out of self-preservation that he does so.

Bernadette's hands are steady and small on the wheel of her car—Sheldon likes that. He prefers theoretical physics to applied because he has little patience for performing experiments that require absolute steadiness of hand.

"Thank you for taking me, Bernadette," Sheldon says quietly, and surreptitiously glances at the driver's side dashboard. He's pleased to see no warning lights on. "Penny had previously agreed to the task, as you know, but she ended up taking on—"

"An extra shift, she texted me when she asked me to do it," Bernadette supplies.

It's when she talks about Penny that Sheldon notices Bernadette's fingers tighten fractionally on the wheel. She doesn't say anything for long enough that Sheldon changes the subject instead.

"This hand will require extensive rehabilitation and therapy to be restored to its former strength," he says irritably. He slides his gaze in Bernadette's direction. "Even then, I doubt it will ever be the same. My research is wholly dependent not only upon my considerable intellect, but my ability to put it down as it's being thought."

"I'm sure it'll be back to normal in no time," Bernadette tries absently when she can hear the neuroses working into Sheldon's tone.

"_Normal_?" Wrong thing to say, apparently. "It will _never_ be—what are you saying; are you listening to yourself? _Honestly_, normal." He's huffing and pouting now, which beats a nervous breakdown in an enclosed area any day.

"It was _three_ broken bones—the cast was only on for six weeks; that's pretty good for any broken bone," Bernadette points out instead, even though she _knows_ it'll start an argument—just as well, it'll distract him from the fact she's heading to the Cheesecake Factory to pick Penny up from work. "It could've been worse."

"Well, of _course_ it could've been worse," Sheldon responds exasperatedly. "It can _always_ be worse—it does not invalidate the current events. State function—the path doesn't matter, only the results," he finishes smugly, as if this explains his entire point. He knows she'll get it too—she's a scientist with what must be at least a _basic_ understanding of process functions, especially if she had been able to understand Leonard's experiments.

He has, unfortunately, missed the light of debate in Bernadette's eyes as she rolls them. "Nor is it a path function either," Bernadette points out evenly. She's not speeding, but she damn well could be if that condescending snerk on his face keeps up. "Regardless of _how_ it got broken, the fact it _could_ have been worse makes its current state—by definition—better than where it was before." Her lips turn a little. "As well as its prior state."

Sheldon glares thoughtfully for a moment. "Hypotheticals," he finally responds. "It's a hypothetical "worse" state you speak of, and thus can't be measured by conventional standards."

Bernadette suddenly feels oddly like she's being tested (it's the freaking tomato soup all over again, and holy Mary, the Zaire strain of Ebola has an average 83% mortality rate; those odds are terrible). She thinks for a moment though, taking her time before she responds.

"What if any and all given hypotheticals are better?" she finally points out. "The function isn't necessarily the point."

"I could have _not_ broken anything—that would've been better." He sounds a little childish in his response, and it makes her lips quirk.

"You could've tripped on the stairs and severed a part of your spinal cord. That would have been far worse, and includes not technically breaking anything."

Sheldon huffs. "You're still talking hypothetically, and contradicting your prior statement of any and all potentials being better."

Bernadette exits the highway. "Your mother could have walked in on you during intercourse ergo—no bodily harm, which—by your _own_ definition is better—but still would be exponentially worse."

"_That_ is hardly relevant to a broken hand!" Sheldon yelps, his face a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment.

Bernadette smiles wryly—Penny would've been more blunt, but this is way better. "You opened the door for any and all potentially worse or better theories."

Sheldon still looks flustered—the heat of the argument is still there, mixed with some layered excitement of debate. "My original point has yet to be rebutted, and therefor still stands—the hypothesis, specifically the one you're _failing_ to support—cannot necessarily be measured, especially with such subjective units as simply "better" or "worse"." He looks victoriously arrogant by the end.

Bernadette can't help the frown that crosses her face, and Sheldon _smirks_. So she takes a another page out of Penny's book, reaches over the middle console, and lightly pinches him on the bare skin of his left forearm.

Sheldon squawks, batting her hand away. "Dear lord, what was _that_ for?" He nearly screeches when she reaches over again, and pinches a bit harder. "Sweet _Jesus_, Bernadette, stop it!"

It's her turn to flash him a smirk though. "So the second one was worse?" she asks blandly. "Since the situation pertains to _your_ specific hand, it would be by _your_ definition of worse or better. You agreed from the beginning that it _could_ have been worse, which is the original hypothesis I was supporting."

Sheldon glares. "You cheated."

Bernadette shrugs. "Penny told me once that the hero always peeks,"—it's always fun and a little cute to see Sheldon turn _that_ specific shade of purple-red—"She forgot to mention how the hero usually wins by subterfuge, aka: cheating."

"Kirk is _hardly_ a role model in such a case."

Bernadette grins and gently pats Sheldon's arm where she'd pinched (honestly, it wasn't that hard). That was as close as she was going to get to technically winning, whether he admitted it or not. Judging by the way he barely flinched when she'd patted his arm, she definitely calls it a win.

Sheldon frowns—his arm is tingling. He's sure he doesn't like it, as there were only a handful of times he could recall having localized epidermic tingling—he _does_ know that most of those times involve Penny, and—more recently—Bernadette. He glances out the window for distraction, and gave Bernadette a confused stare.

"It's not Tuesday."

"No, but Penny asked me if I would pick her up from work after you and I were done getting your cast taken off," Bernadette replies, and there's a little bit of apology in her tone, because she knows Sheldon had been planning on going directly home. She sighs, noting the little pout already forming on his narrow features. "We'll go get comic books?" she finally offers up as condolence.

"As Wolowitz and Koothrappali decided to drag Leonard out to do the same and failed to wait, I suppose this is acceptable." He hunches a bit. "Dinner first." He's muttering about schedules and routine, about disrespect and lack of loyalty, and mostly about the fact that it was comic book night _anyway_—

"Alright," Bernadette sighs. She kind of feels bad—she knows how much Sheldon doesn't like the unknowns. "Want me to call Amy along?" She feels a little worse. It hadn't even occurred to her to ask about Howard's plans with Raj and Leonard, but she's honestly having trouble caring.

Sheldon hunches down a little further. "Amy thought it best that we not engage in conversation for some time."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sheldon," Bernadette says, and her mind runs over the few conversations that they've had with Amy about her relationship (or lack thereof) with Sheldon, and wonders if Amy finally got tired of a "mutually satisfying, purely intellectual relationship".

"There is nothing to apologize for; what on earth did you do?" Sheldon asks, and seems genuinely confused. He clears his throat awkwardly though, because Bernadette's clearly waiting on an explanation. "I believe Amy wanted to pursue a more…physical relationship." He sighs, because this part was actually difficult, when he and Amy had got to the bare bones of the matter, to use a popular aphorism. "As it is…we do not believe that those feelings are there. I agreed with her clarification, though I was a little bemused as to why she felt the need to make such a distinction."

"You must be a little sad though, right?"

"Why would I be upset about Amy? If I were to be upset or "a little sad", as you put it, it would be over entirely different things," Sheldon responds, but his cheek flinches a little as Bernadette pulls to a stop. His mouth shuts abruptly, as if he feels he's said too much about something he wanted to say nothing about in the first place.

"What would you have to be distraught over?" Bernadette pushes, even though Sheldon's face indicates he's already shut down.

"I possess one of the most brilliant minds in the country," Sheldon finally gets out, but his voice is stilted, and his fingers make a rhythmic motion on his leg. "I find romantic entanglements and biological urges to be wholly useless and without merit. There is little practical worth for choosing to romantically involve one's self with another. Even friendships do not always bring the expected benefit one might presume, and I'm not always entirely certain why I even bother with them."

She's pretty sure she's struck a nerve, and it's one that she wasn't aware existed. "Because friends make your life more interesting?" she tries.

Sheldon slides his glance at her. "My life is more interesting than I believe is necessary, and not with matters related to the subjects that people should concern themselves with."

Bernadette knows she's being nosy at this point; Sheldon looks much like he'd rather eat dirt than continue talking. But she didn't get her doctorate by sitting back idly while others did the talking for her either.

"Maybe people are concerned for you in general, because they care about you," she tries instead.

"Perhaps they should care more about other things."

"Perhaps _you_ should care more that others care enough about you to ask," Bernadette replies back without thinking, and it earns her a stilted glare.

"You asked; I responded honestly that Amy and I have decided that time apart for a while owing to adjustment to the new paradigm was in order," Sheldon responds. "This specific event is not one that makes me upset." He's still looking at her. "Moods are not necessarily a state or path function, Bernadette, and neither are relationships."

"Bazinga?" Bernadette asks as she gets her phone out, because she's not entirely sure if he's exacting his unique brand of humor, or if he's genuinely trying to express something he's not sure he understands. She holds off on texting Penny for a moment.

The way Sheldon looks at her…she's pretty sure she got it in one, but his face isn't necessarily sad, so much as it is…resigned—as if he had seen this coming all along, and had known the outcome going in.

Which meant he either knew he would _never_ be into a relationship except for procreative purposes, or that he didn't think he really knew how—and Amy deciding to pursue other options was simply both a failure and confirmation, the former with his social skills and the latter with his ability to form that specific type of relationship.

It comes to her in such a quick moment of clarity that she feels a little dizzy with it.

That's exactly what it was—he'd actually _tried_, in his own way, with Amy—it hadn't worked; he didn't think it ever would. He'd only tried because it's what he thought he was supposed to do—and now he could simply tell everyone that he'd "told them so". Now he's in an entirely different set of circumstances, and she can almost feel the "does not compute" rolling off of him in waves, in addition to the fear of having no control over it. No, he's not upset over Amy.

It's something else entirely, and she feels it down to her toes, because she's not entirely sure what it is—she knows it's partly her and Penny, but it looks about half of something else as well.

Her heart splits a little for him, and she texts Penny as it begins to rain outside.

Sheldon's quiet as they wait (Penny's running behind on her shift; Bernadette goes ahead and calls in their order for Thai). Her hand gently lifts to his shoulder while she's on the phone, and he looks at her with a hint of surprise, a _lot_ of reluctance to let her hand remain there, and an undercurrent of something else struggling to pull its way to the surface.

She's waiting on them to answer when she looks at him. "There, there," she tries quietly, and it feels awkward coming out of her mouth, and then she's ordering their food. She hates that his face doesn't change, can't tell if it meant anything or not. The look remains the same.

It takes Bernadette a bit by surprise, because she's never seen Sheldon look at anyone quite like that, except maybe Penny when they're arguing. Her breath catches in her throat as she listens to the man on the phone repeat her order back to her.

Bernadette shakes her head sharply once, and asks the man to repeat the order again. She focuses on the rivulets of rain on the windshield. Her head whips back when something ghosts across her fingers, but it's quick and light, and she's not even sure she actually _felt_ it.

Instead, she drops her hand back to her lap and starts picking a thread in the hem of her dress. Sheldon visibly twitches, and fists his hands on his knees with a deep breath. His right hand hurts a little. He wishes Penny were _here_ already; her sense of time has no respect for other people's feelings. His fingers twitch a bit, and his eyes are darting to where Bernadette's picking a thread loose from her the hem of her dress.

He takes a deep breath. Multiple possibilities are running through his head, and in the end, he picks the one that will get her to stop pulling her clothes apart with anxiety. His hand darts out and grasps her fingers.

Bernadette's staring at him, her eyes wide and as blue as his own, even in the damp darkness of the car.

"It's alright, but thank you," he finally says in a soft tone that stings her with its exposed quietness. His head turns sharply suddenly, and he pulls away.

Bernadette's wondering if maybe she should get some more sleep or ask the lab techs at work to adjust the bleach concentration they use to sterilize any and all surfaces, because she is _clearly_ imagining things.

Penny gets into the car though, swearing sharply at the rain and looking a little worse for the wear as she buckles up.

Sheldon turns in his seat. "Why, exactly, did you require Bernadette's assistance to procure transportation from work?" he asks once she's in. "The extra stop has irreparably broken tonight's schedule of Halo and comic books." He's still smarting (physically, emotionally—heck, logically, as far the argument goes), and he can now practically _feel_ the imbalance of the car as Penny remains in the seat behind him instead of moving to the middle like any other sane person might.

"My car's busy," Penny mutters, and she looks _pissed_.

Bernadette doesn't ask—she knows better. Sheldon isn't quite so socially gifted.

"Why is that?" He raises an eyebrow. "Did your engine, perhaps, require—_checking_?"

It earns him a kick to his seat. "Want me to break the other hand?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	10. The Happiness Hypothesis

Bernadette carefully sets up food on the coffee table, anxiously glancing back and forth to the door. She knows she shouldn't feel guilty right now, but it's running a line of hard chill down her spine every time she hears a noise. Penny's setting up beside of her, placing napkins and silverware on the table as well. She seems to notice that Bernadette's nervous, and pats her shoulder as she stands up straight.

"It's a night in with people who aren't Howard and Raj," Penny points out, her voice soft and kind. Her hand trails over Bernadette's shoulder, catches a few strands of the wavy blonde hair as she walks away.

It makes Bernadette a little edgier, but she keeps placing the cartons of take-out on the table. Sheldon's in the bathroom, and she'd rolled her eyes when he'd announced it was time for his evening urination.

Nothing wrong with continuity, she admits—however, there's a _line_, honestly.

Penny comes back with a few cans of soda and places them on coasters as Sheldon exits the hallway. He looks at the food suspiciously, but then seems to reconsider what he's about to say as he sits down on the couch.

It's unnaturally quiet as they eat, Penny in between Sheldon and Bernadette. They're all elbow-to-elbow, but no one seems inclined to think or point out or worry that they're too close or overly touching.

Penny seems to be the first to crack underneath the silence though, and she puts her dumplings down to pick up the remote. Sheldon twitches a little, and she groans. _Halo night._

"Bernadette's taking you to get comics," Penny points out. "Halo starts promptly at eight, and it's six-thirty now. You always take at least an hour or so at that store, more if you get into it with Stuart."

Sheldon looks like he's going to pout. "The comic book store is _after_ Halo, Penny, and it's hardly my fault that Stuart's assumptions—to use a popular metaphor—make an ass out of himself and everyone that listens to him."

Bernadette snorts a little bit of her sprite through her nose, because that makes the third time she's ever heard Sheldon so much as say anything as hard as "damn", and she's known him for nearly three years.

"So," Penny continues, her lips struggling to quirk because Bernadette's gotten up to blow her nose (being that a carbonated lemon-lime beverage feels rather uncomfortable in there), "You can either do comics or you can have halo night, but you can't have both."

Bernadette throws her tissue away in the kitchen, washes her hands before she heads back. "I'll do one or the other," she says firmly. "But not both, because I'm not going to leave here and come all the way back just to take you to the comic book store."

"Your apartment is only 14 minutes away," Sheldon responds, but his tone is childish. "If you are that concerned over the usage of gasoline, I will be more than happy to compensate for the mileage."

Bernadette tuts at him as she comes back. "It's not about the mileage," she says firmly, and injects her tone with motherly scolding. "It's about respecting my time as well as Penny's."

"She's got a point," Penny says, and swallows the rest of her spring roll.

Sheldon glares at his mee krob. "I'd be able to do it myself if I were the Flash," he mutters.

"But you're _not_ the Flash," Bernadette responds, and swirls noodles around her sticks. "You can either have comics or play Halo. It's one or nothing."

"But that's not fair!" Sheldon grumbles, and there's a _definite_ note of childishness in his tone now.

"I guess it's nothing then," Penny sing-songs, and reaches for a spring roll. "Right, Bernadette?"

"Oh, _fine_," Sheldon snaps, and crosses his arms as he leans back in his spot. "Halo it is. But you did promise, Bernadette; you will be required at another point in time to keep your consolation promise for having altered my schedule earlier."

Bernadette snorts sprite again, but that's because she hadn't thought he'd known she was doing it to appease him. The surprise must've shown not only on her face, but Penny's as well, because Sheldon sets his food down with a look of condescension.

"Honestly, I may not appreciate any of the social constructs you people insist upon forcing on me, but I know when I'm being humored," Sheldon states, and his face is cloudy. He picks up his food again, as if to keep his hands busy. What he's not saying is that he's spent not only his entire life being humored by others, but spent three solid months in a tiny cabin getting the same treatment from people he knew well enough to recognize the behavior (_not in the ways that mattered_, a voice points out). "If we finish eating by seven, and I only spend forty-five minutes in the comic book store, and push Halo back by fifteen minutes, then we _will_ have time to accomplish both tasks."

Bernadette sighs. "You're missing the point, Sheldon—my time is as important as yours. Pick one, or I'm not taking you anywhere."

"And neither will I," Penny offers up.

Sheldon snorts. "With your car being busy—which I imagine is a euphemism for you actually getting the engine _checked_—I would not require your assistance. The promise was Bernadette's, not yours."

"So is it still Halo?" Penny asks.

Sheldon looks a bit irritated. "We only have three people."

"I don't really play Halo," Bernadette edges out—Howard had tried to show her once, but the night had ended with Howard being frustrated and Bernadette feeling stupid.

"It's okay, I'll teach you," Sheldon responds automatically. "It's hardly fun for you to simply sit there idly while the merriment is being made around you."

Bernadette shakes her head reluctantly. "I don't really want to learn," she finally says. "Dinner was fine though; I'll just head out after."

Sheldon frowns—the disappointment he feels at that is unexpected, though he is more than satisfied with playing with Penny—her skills will be far superior to Bernadette's, who has shown recently enough that while the enthusiasm is possibly there, the skill isn't—not unless she decides to hit buttons instead of making the sound effects instead.

"You were adequate with Star Wars: Old Republic," Sheldon finally says, because the part of his brain that normally tells him when to put the filter on is conspicuously missing. "Though in Halo, you will be required to shoot to kill—simply making a shotgun sound will not suffice."

Bernadette narrows her gaze at him, and lifts her pointer finger at him in a mockery of a gun. "_Pew_," she mimics.

"That's precisely the opposite of what you'll need to do."

"Well, you two play—I'll make sound effects," Bernadette retorts, and settles back with her chicken satay. "If it means that much to you that I stay."

Sheldon waves his hand. "Stay or go, make a decision, Dr. Rostenkowski. Honestly, should I ask which pharmaceutical company hires iffy microbiologists so I can avoid their medications at all costs?"

Penny glares at him this time, and Sheldon turns, because he's put that oddly hurt look on Bernadette's face again. She's good at hiding it, just not good enough for someone who remembers _everything_.

_"You really think I weigh—"_

Sheldon sighs when Penny's gaze gets harder.

"It was a fair question," Sheldon mutters, and he digs back into his mee krob just to get away from the looks from both women on his couch. Honestly, he thinks his spot might be losing some of its _spotness_, as it were, if it can't make those looks go away.

"You should stay, Bernadette," Penny finally says, and reaches an arm around her shoulders, picking up another spring roll with her other hand. "You can watch me hand Sheldon's ass to him on a grenade-accented platter."

Sheldon glares at her, sees the competition in her face, the amused curiosity on Bernadette's. "I hardly think you can accent a platter with grenades."

"Oh, I'll find a way." She finishes off the spring roll. "It's _so_ on." She doesn't say that she's mostly just pissed that Sheldon put that look on Bernadette's face.

Sheldon quirks an eyebrow. "Bring it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's inching towards 10pm, but Bernadette's actually a little riveted to the screen. It's not that she's never seen the guys play, or even seen Penny play with the guys. It's an _entirely_ different dish of microbes to see Penny and Sheldon play one-on-one. She's actually had to stop herself from squealing out warnings, settling instead of grabbing Penny's arm or reaching behind her to tap frantically at the cushion behind Sheldon's shoulder. It'd earned her a _Look_ the first time from both of them, so concentrated they were, but once they'd realized what it was, it'd gotten her an appreciative smirk from Sheldon and a one-armed hug from Penny.

Both of which had made Bernadette feel ridiculously warm on the inside.

"You want to give it a shot, Bernadette?" Penny asks, twisting the controller in her hand deftly.

Bernadette shakes her head—she doesn't want to ruin something all three of them are clearly enjoying right now, not the way she's had to sit through _hours_ of watching Raj and Howard just play, play, and play some more (it was okay, when she was still doing her graduate research and dissertation, but once that had finished, it'd become old so very fast without all of the excess studying and anxiety to take up the time).

"No," Bernadette says firmly. "I'd probably be bad at it."

Sheldon snorts derisively. "Penny's _still_ bad at it."

Bernadette's a little late grabbing onto Penny's arm.

"Wha—Sheldon, I was talking to Bernadette! Not fair!"

Sheldon smirks at her; his hair is a little looser than normal than it was at the beginning of the day, and it makes Penny's skin break out into goosebumps. Bernadette's still got a grip on her arm, and _shit_, she can probably feel it.

"All's fair in love and war, Penelope," he says, using her full name for effect.

Penny glares at him, respawns, and quickly ducks for cover when he throws another grenade. "Quit being such a dick," she snaps at him.

"Penny, such language is _hardly_ necessary—yes, Bernadette, I do see her, and—drat!"

Bernadette had resorted to tapping Sheldon's shoulder, but it hadn't worked. It was an awkward reach too.

"She certainly couldn't do any worse than you," Penny teases, giving him a beaming smile that rather makes Sheldon feel like he's swallowed a whole rabble of butterflies. Big ones. It's not going to hit him until tomorrow that he's completely unconcerned about not going to the comic book store.

And Bernadette's hand sliding off his shoulder doesn't help, nor does the way her hand catches on some of Penny's hair in a deliberate fashion that he's pretty sure was on purpose.

He's certain of it when Penny snipes him from less than 20 meters away.

Sheldon huffs. "Desist!" he yelps when Penny automatically grenades his respawn site.

Bernadette's laughing herself silly by this point, and even though she _knows_ it's just the endorphins being released from the laughter, she still feels better than she has in a long time. She glances at her watch—it's nearly ten; Sheldon will want to be going to bed.

Instead, she snatches the controller from Penny's hands. "You'll at least go a little easy on me?"

Penny yelps when Sheldon blows Bernadette's head off.

"Did your advisor go easy on you when you turned in the first draft of your dissertation?" he asks blandly, and Bernadette leans forward, steeling herself. She strips her cardigan off in preparation.

"I'll help," Penny promises into her ear, and the chill that sneaks down Bernadette's spine is unexpected, as is the shiver that comes with it. Penny gives her a look, but it's not one that Bernadette can read.

What ends up happening is even better, because over twenty minutes later, Bernadette still has the controller—while she's nowhere _near_ the natural Penny was, she's still better at it (between Sheldon's sink-or-swim technique and Penny's helpful hints) than she thought she'd be.

It also gave Penny the excuse at least twice to put her arms around her and push the buttons for her to try and get her used to it. She's glad she took the cardigan off—she'd have either picked a sleeve apart by now or sweated to death.

Sheldon unexpectedly pauses the game. "Your turn, Penny."

"Bernadette's still playing; I don't need the practice." She turns to face him, and is a little bit surprised that he's holding his controller towards her.

"Be that as it may, I need to take my nightly shower," he responds. "I am already behind schedule, and will need to complete my nightly ablutions before retiring to bed." He looks almost crazily reluctant.

Penny takes it though. "That's very big of you, sweetie," she says fondly. "I know you wouldn't let just anyone play your character."

Sheldon shrugs, and squawks when his character promptly gets blown up by a grenade from Bernadette. "Bernadette, I was speaking to Penny!" He realizes the minute it comes out of his mouth that Penny had made the _exact_ same argument earlier—he doesn't care, because while Penny chooses to blatantly ignore rules, Bernadette shouldn't learn from her example.

Bernadette smirks at him, jostles her shoulder gently against Penny's in camaraderie. The combination of their wicked smiles and eyes (_blue green blue green it's the ocean)_ are making his skin tingle _everywhere_, and he desperately turns to get a glass of water to wet his parched throat. He's glad he's turned away, because he can hear Penny giggling about something, and he just _knows_ that if he turns around, it's going to make the growing arousal in his briefs all the more worse.

He has to do it sometime though, and once he's sure he's got himself under control, he turns. Bernadette's still grinning at him, but they're both focused mostly on the television as they play. It makes him smile a little, to see them into something that doesn't revolve around work and tense relationships. It's easy in here, much easier than he would've given even himself credit for. It's all laughter and smiles, easy competition and unserious smack-talking, with bits of science and pop culture interjected and mediated.

All the same, Bernadette's noticed that he's turned around. "All's fair in love and war, Dr. Cooper," she half-sings at him, and her voice, while still melodic and high, is pitched differently than he's used to, and he's never heard the tone from her or Penny, and so he can't place it.

"Then you should prepare for war," Sheldon observes, because sure enough, Bernadette drops an epithet to Saint Patrick, and Penny whoops in victory.

"I'd prefer love to war," Bernadette mutters, and feels all kinds of absurdly warm feelings when Penny grins at her, jostles their shoulders together again as they start a new spawn.

Sheldon can't help the way his lips quirk; dear lord, he _wants_ to. What he really wants to do is open the damn boxes, kill the damn cats himself, and call it a day.

Instead, when he gets out of the shower and they're still playing, he sits back in his spot with his pajamas on and all, and prepares to show Bernadette just who taught Penny how to do it (which he knows, Penny's got a knack for killing things, especially with sniper rifles from 60 meters away, _how in the sweet lord's name did she _do _that_).

It surprises him when Penny shuffles a bit closer after she comes back with water for the three of them, and Bernadette shifts closer to Penny. He's quite tired by this point though (_good lord, it's 11pm_), and concentrated enough on _not_ getting killed by 5 feet of Halo-newbie to not care. It's not even that Bernadette's particularly _good_—he's just tired.

That, and he can't get the combined smell of rosemary-mint and vanilla from his brain—but he's pretty sure (_lielielie_) that it's just because he's tired.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon's morning is off to a poor start. He hasn't gotten his usual 8 hours of uninterrupted REM sleep (that's his own fault for once, so he's disinclined to verbally berate anyone but himself), but he still managed to rise at his usual time, and is ready to leave the apartment promptly at 7am, as per usual.

Unfortunately, Leonard seems to have other ideas—he isn't ready until 7:30, which undoubtedly leads to the speeding ticket said-physicist receives on the way to work, which means Sheldon doesn't get to work until 8:42am, which is unacceptable.

"Does no one in this social group ever learn?" Sheldon mutters, noting the way Leonard's hurriedly putting eye drops in behind his glasses. It's hardly going to help—Sheldon recognizes the way Leonard smells faintly of stale alcohol, owing to the way it's coming off Leonard's skin. Sheldon's in possession of sensitive olfactory receptors as it is—the smell reminds him of his father.

"We overindulged," Leonard mutters. "Drop it."

"_I_ did not get my required sleep, and _I_ was still ready to embark at the usual time," Sheldon replies, because it's true. "It is hardly anyone's fault but your own that you thought speeding would somehow change the laws of space-time and allow us to arrive at the college any earlier than 8:15am, as we did not leave until 7:27."

"So I was running late, it's no big deal," Leonard groans, because he's not in the mood to argue much when there's a baby walrus jumping on a trampoline in his head (seriously, he doesn't know _what_ was in the stuff Raj got from his sister in a care package from India, but whatever it is—it's probably illegal state-side).

"No big deal?" Sheldon snaps in exasperation. "When your lack of respect for the time—no matter what activities you are partaking—shift _your_ entire schedule, it also results in shifting _mine_, and I do not show up late for work owing to late night activities involving ethyl alcohol and so-called emo music."

Leonard rolls his eyes—he _so_ doesn't want to be arguing about this. "Find your own ride home then." He exits down his hallway.

Sheldon glares after him. Honestly, Leonard can be worse than PMS-Penny sometimes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette's more irritated at the reason Sheldon needs a ride as opposed to actually performing the action. She's always been a bit fond of him, despite his quirky habits—everyone's got a _thing_, after all, and she can relate to needing routine and order.

What she's not understanding is why Leonard would take out something that was his fault on Sheldon. She knows Sheldon's abrasive—but his brutal honesty is somewhat of a constant in their social group.

Bernadette adjusts her lab goggles—she'd had to tell him over the phone that she could do it, but it wouldn't be until 6pm that she could pick him up, owing to a department meeting that she can't get out of (god, she wants to—it's a "political correctness" meeting, and they seem to get stuck in these every three months like clockwork—honestly, she thinks someone drops an insensitive remark on purpose just to see it happen).

He's frustrated, but surprisingly tells her that it will suffice, and he's sure he can busy himself until she gets there. She sighs—she really wants out of this meeting. She's trying to tell herself it's because she really has no desire at all to sit through it, and has nothing to do with the fact that she's actually a little bit (alright, a lot) okay with picking Sheldon up, possibly talking on the way home about their own respective fields (her understanding of physics is college-sophomore-level at best, but she's picked up more over the last couple of years). Maybe she can make him smile a bit like he had been during Halo night.

Bernadette's hands remain steady as her brain flies at full speed. If she keeps up with it, she knows she's going to find herself on the receiving end of a rude awakening in the form of two crushes at the same time. It's not even that she's never crushed on a girl before either—there was that other girl in college, the one she'd helped out so much through organic chemistry. She doesn't remember her name any longer, it was years ago. It hadn't even freaked her out _then_, seeing as it _was_ college—didn't everyone experiment?

The problem is that she doesn't even know how to go about it. Oh, she knows with Penny, it'd probably just be an easy smile and a gentle let-down. Sheldon's brutal honesty (always constant) would simply remind Bernadette that he has little desire for entanglements of any kind. She knows that's how it'd go—knows it so certainly that she's not even sure it's a risk, so much as it is a guarantee.

But then there was the way Penny kissed her that night. The way Sheldon stared at both of them during Halo. The way Bernadette herself had tackled Penny in the hospital bathroom. The way Sheldon doesn't flinch as much around her or Penny as he does around—well, _everyone_.

Bernadette shakes her head sharply, readjusts her goggles as she inspects the zones of inhibition on her petri dish—_dammit_. Not _nearly_ the results she was hoping for. All the same, she takes scrapings of the bacteria for further inspection of the effects, though judging by the minute clearings around the discs of antibiotic-soaked cotton, there's not going to be much. Her boss is going to be _pissed_.

She sighs, glances at the clock. _Two hours_.

At least picking up Sheldon and running him home will have the added bonus of potentially having a night in with Penny. She texts Penny as much, to see if she's interested—she's ridiculously happy about it until Amy chimes in with an offering of chicken nuggets for dinner.

_Dammit_.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny's tossing nuggets in the air and catching them in her mouth with Amy and Bernadette when the knocking comes.

Knock, knock, knock. "Penny." Knock, knock, knock. "Penny."

Penny's lips quirk when Bernadette jumps up and opens the door before he can finish. It seems to have become somewhat of a private joke between Bernadette and Sheldon, even if she knows about it.

Amy smiles though. "Oh, Bernadette. Your humor." She looks over at Penny. "She knows it's not nice to interrupt an OCD's ritual, I take it?"

"Oh, she knows," Penny replies amusingly, and pops another nugget in her mouth, and Amy feels like she's missing something.

Sheldon glares at Bernadette in consternation, and, briefly remembering when the microbiologist herself had rapped on his chest, he narrows his gaze. His hand jerkily reaches up, taps her shoulder three times.

"Penny," he finishes, and looks triumphant at her slightly surprised look. "May I come in?"

"Did you bring banana bread?" Penny replies. "My pantry's lookin' mighty empty."

"Looking, and perhaps if you did your grocery shopping with a set schedule—"

"You work a low-paying, minimum-wage job for tip credit; see how regular _your_ grocery shopping is," Penny interrupts him. "What did you want?"

"I came to inquire about the status of your comfort levels around Leonard," Sheldon replies bluntly as he enters the apartment, spares a withering glance at the untidiness, and shakes his head. It's distracting, but it will have to wait.

Penny screws her nose up. "We're not really…talking, Sheldon. And it's not really any of your business."

"I have no desire to get tangled up in what I'm sure is a good old fashioned soap opry all 'round, as my mother would put it—I'm asking because we are going for paintball on Sunday, and Wolowitz thought it might be…" Sheldon looks like he's having to force the words out here. "_Fun_ to invite the ladies."

Amy raises an eyebrow. "It's not paintball Sunday."

Sheldon nods in agreement. "It is not. It is the backup plan in the event we cannot agree on any one activity, and as this is what has taken place, we have fallen back on paintball, barring bad weather."

"And I'm the only one who really plays," Penny points out. "I don't think Amy and Bernadette would be that into it; do you?"

Sheldon sighs with a hint of frustration. "As I told you before," he repeats with a self-suffering tone, "Wolowitz thought it might be a good idea, as we won't be playing with the usual departmental teams." There's a muscle tic in his eyes though, and his hands are clasped behind his back so they can't see his fingers twitching—it had actually been an idea of both Wolowitz and Leonard; Wolowitz in an attempt to include Bernadette more in activities he enjoyed (which, in theory, could work, except he still had little interest in hers). Leonard's attempt was less subtle—he was playing to Penny's natural competitive streak and the adrenaline rush she often got from running around and shooting things.

Amy seems a bit interested though. She's never played paintball, but being that she's friends with Sheldon, she knows at least a _little_ about it. She knows it's little more than compressed air and messy paint. She has been meaning to get out more though.

"Make it laser tag, and it's a deal," Amy abruptly says. "Paintball is outside and too messy."

Sheldon blanches though. "We _only_ play laser tag if we _must_; have you seen the unwashed miscreants who wear the gear they re-rent out to other players?" He looks horrified. "And if it is to be laser tag, I will not be joining."

"You could wear your own mask," Penny offers up (it's been _years_ since she did laser tag; it's actually kind of a good idea). "That would solve _that_ issue."

Sheldon still looks uncomfortable. "But not of the body armor or weaponry choices."

"So bring a can of disinfectant," Amy retorts. "Honestly, Sheldon—you can't let your mysophobia affect your daily function to this extent."

Sheldon sighs. "So the agreement is the three of you will come if it we choose laser tag instead?"

"I'm in," Penny replies with a shrug of her shoulders. Laser tag offers lots of darkness; it's unlikely she'll have to actually _interact_ with Leonard overly much.

"I would also participate," Amy agrees.

Sheldon looks like he's losing an arm, and glances at Bernadette. "Dr. Rostenkowski?"

Bernadette hates the way she can't say no when he calls her that. It also helps a little though that laser tag was the method of cutting stress in college. She's pretty sure almost _no one_ knows that, but seriously—her dad was a police officer her entire life; do they really think she can't shoot a weapon?

"You know, I _told_ Wolowitz and Leonard it would be rather futile to try and include _everyone_, what with recent relationship tensions between all parties involved," Sheldon mutters. "Paintball it is. Thank you for your time." He turns to leave.

It's an hour later when Penny knocks on the door of 4A. She's not always sure how Amy manages to guilt her with pure logic, but it has an alarmingly high success rate. The conversation replays in her head after she'd seen Bernadette to her car, and then Amy last.

_"Bestie…I hesitate to ask this of you, but we are best friends."_

_ "What did you need?" Penny's already a little worried._

_ "With Sheldon and I having spoken for the first time tonight, and us having our first real girl's night since Sheldon and I mutually agreed to spend a time apart to adjust, I find myself very aware of how much I have missed my usual social interactions with our group."_

_ Yeah, Penny really doesn't like where this is going._

_ "As such," Amy continues, "I wonder if you could find it in your heart to allow our girls' group to join the boys on Sunday. How bad can Leonard really be if we're shooting each other in the dark?" Amy's dark eyes look eager and excited, like a child on Christmas who's gotten everything they wanted. "Besides, you and I can take everyone by storm and totally bust a can open, yes?"_

She hates the wounded look on Leonard's face when he opens the door, but refuses to let herself feel guilty for doing what she knew was right.

"Sheldon invited us to play paintball with you guys," Penny starts off, and she hopes the awkwardness isn't apparent in her voice.

Leonard kicks the ground. "It was more an invite for you. I don't think Amy's ever _seen_ a paintball gun, and I'm pretty sure Bernadette could barely lift one."

"Watch it," Penny warns, because even though both of those facts are technically true, she can't help but hear an insult in Leonard's tone. "I know it wasn't just Howard's idea, but yours too."

Leonard lifts his gaze to meet hers, and it's curious and hurt at the same time. "So sue me for thinking I could maybe try and win you back a little over some paintballing."

Penny sighs again. "Leonard…really think about it. I mean…it's a nice story—you and me—but that's all it is. A story."

"Why can't it be our story?" he asks, and there's a bit of defiance in his voice; it's edging towards that tone he uses when he thinks he knows better than she does just because he went to college.

"Because our story could be better than that," Penny replies honestly. "You really think we'd stay happy?"

"We could."

She really hopes he's not seriously delusional. "Look," she says, "I think we all need to get out. I don't think it's a _great_ idea, but we could probably all use some stress relief, and god knows nothing says stress relief like taking a paintball to the chest."

"Or a laser sensor," Leonard shrugs. "Sheldon told me that Amy said she'd go if we made it laser tag," he explains at Penny's puzzled look.

Penny leans against the doorjamb a bit. "Either way," she goes on, "If you can _promise_ not to make things…weird…I think I can manage it." She crosses her arms, and then lets them drop, as if she's aware it makes her look defensive and angry. "Maybe beta-test being friends, huh?"

Leonard looks like he's going to argue when a voice shouts out.

"Just agree, Leonard—it's her best offer. Additionally, I need to sleep!"

Penny laughs weakly; Sheldon's nothing if not predictable.

Leonard sighs, pushes his glasses up. "Let me think about it?"

Penny knows that's as good as no, and decides to make other plans on Sunday. She remembers her conversation with Amy, and grits her teeth—there's a solution to this. What'd the guys call it? Beckham's Razor?

Sounds about right. So she texts Sheldon before she goes to bed.

_Amy and Bernadette are going i gotta work that day._

Penny sends another quick message to both Amy and Bernadette to tell them the same lie. Her phone vibrates several times before she finally drifts off, trying to think of what, exactly, she's going to do with her Sunday now that everyone else is going to be busy.

She sighs, bundling under her covers and pulling Charm Bear to her chest. With her face buried in the fur and her lungs quickly telling her she needs air, she can only do this for so long. There's a logical, sing-songy sort of voice in her head telling her that the other side of Beckham's razor (_that's not it; god, what is it_) is that she could always just go back out with Leonard, help Bernadette patch things up with Howard, try and set Sheldon and Amy back to rights.

Her stomach clenches—she doesn't want that, and not just for herself either. Amy deserves more—not necessarily _better_, but _more_. Bernadette definitely deserves better, but Penny wagers that at one time, they had to have been brutally happy—she agreed to marry him.

And was still mulling it over, judging by the fact she'd taken the ring back. She no longer wore it, but she'd still taken it back—all she would mention was the fact she really just wanted to time to really think it through.

_"It takes just as much thought to say yes as it does no_," is what Bernadette had said.

It'd made Penny feel ridiculously miffed at the time, almost the same way she'd felt when Amy told her about kissing Sheldon on Halloween.

Penny punches her pillow furiously, grabs Cheer Bear instead. Cheer Bear reminds her a lot of Bernadette in some ways. Grumpy Bear's definitely Sheldon. She screws her eyes shut, as if the harder she closes them, the faster she'll fall asleep (and hopefully, the quicker she'll stop imagining Sheldon and Bernadette dressed as Care Bears). It's not working though, and all she can think about now is how much she hopes Bernadette shoves that ring where even the son of God doesn't shine.

She steels her mind harder though, grits her teeth. Razor or no razor, she knows the lines in her own head are sharp and clear. It's not like she's never thought about Sheldon that way—the eyes and hands alone would suffice—she's definitely no stranger to having _those_ thoughts about the lanky physicist.

Bernadette's a little harder to reconcile in her own head, because she's never felt inclined to swing that way. She wonders if maybe she's just confusing close, affectionate friendship with something else—

Her mind supplies the heat and spark she'd felt from kissing Bernadette though, and she hugs Cheer Bear harder.

An odd memory from her childhood surfaces in her sleep-deprived mind. Penny and her brother and sister, Tim and Callie, had found an abandoned litter of kittens—4 of them, to be exact. They'd managed to give two of them away, after which Tim and Callie both had seemed to lose interest. Penny (she thinks she was 10 at the time? It was before Tim started losing pieces of himself, definitely before Callie got pregnant) had taken on the two remaining kittens herself, paying the utmost attention to their care and well-being.

Until she'd come home one day to find that her mom had finally given them both away, and Penny remembers feeling like she didn't even get a say in the matter.

Penny pulls Grumpy Bear to her as an afterthought, settling him on her pillow. Some things never change.

Bernadette pulls at the hem of her pajama top when she gets Penny's decline for the Sunday activities—she's been called into work and she needs the hours, but Amy and Bernadette should go and have fun.

She frowns as a piece of thread comes loose in her fingers, and she moves onto the collar of her pajama top instead.

It's just a text message, and Bernadette has no reason to think Penny would straight-out _lie_, at least not to her. She sends her a text all the same, asking if everything's okay, but she never gets a response.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon's irritated when his phone beeps, and wonders how on earth he could've not thought to turn the thing off. He's also not accustomed to receiving text messages past the time when everyone _knows_ he will be entering his sleep cycle, so it's not necessarily something he finds fault with himself for.

The message is from Penny (really, her grammar and spelling look like something a 12-year-old with a brand new phone would write), and he frowns at the way she's seemed to remove herself from the activities of their social circle. He stops himself from sending anything back right away; it will need to wait until morning if he is to get proper sleep.

Sleep is hard coming, however, and he looks at the message again. It's impossible to really deduce anything from a ten-word text message, but the way Leonard had come back in, he's reasonably certain that she's either lying, or going to fix it with the Cheesecake Factory so that she's _not_ lying (well, it's still subterfuge either way—she has all the subtlety of a bull in a glass shop at times). He frowns, cocoons himself in the covers once more with the phone on the nightstand (this time, turned on silent).

She'd been happy, a few nights ago during Halo. She'd been happy at the Halloween party. She'd been happy during the beginning of the DC-movie-marathon. She'd been happy when they went to Bernadette's the first time in an ill-fated attempt to cheer the microbiologist out of her drunken depression.

His mind is working in its usual fashion, though the physical symptoms that accompanied each of those events is a bit troubling. It doesn't seem to be…_harming_ him, per se, as the symptoms nearly always subside later. However, his mind works in brilliantly drawn-up mazes, neurons firing in precise patterns that let him come to the obvious solutions.

The obvious solution he's just realized (and will _finally_ allow him to sleep) is that Penny's happiness has been tied to spending time with Bernadette and himself. Satisfied that he at least has _something_ to work with, Sheldon leans his head back on the pillow. The rest will come to him in the morning.

He'll have Bernadette take him to the comic book store tomorrow, as per her promise earlier in the week. It will mean shifting vintage video game night by an hour or so; the change makes him twitch a little beneath the covers. He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that it's for the greater good, and closes his eyes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	11. The Ball Pit Oddity

Bernadette reluctantly trudges up the stairs to 4A. It's not that she's not a little thrilled (a lot, if she's being honest) to bus Sheldon to the comic book store—she'd just been hoping to surprise Penny at work (catch her off guard, if she's being honest) to demand why she wouldn't be attending Sunday's outing (because if she's being—darn it, she can't even lie in her own head).

With a sigh, she knocks promptly at 5pm. She'd promised, after all, and it's becoming more and more fun to hang out with Sheldon, who seems less…neurotic and exasperating without the other guys around.

She doesn't have time to analyze the sudden revelation; Sheldon looks somewhat impatient and—something else? She can't quite identify the motion; it's almost nervous, or even a little jumpy. Their conversation is smooth enough as they walk down the stairs—she knows enough about Leonard's work to vaguely follow Sheldon's, and he knows an unsurprising amount about microscopic pathogens.

The odd, jittery look doesn't leave his frame—if anything, he seems to get worse as they walk into the comic book store.

Bernadette's not a fan of comic books, and she's finding that she feels about the same of the actual comic book store. She can see why Penny avoids the place like the plague—some of these guys could make their own reality show about _real_ 40-year-old virgins.

Really though, it's not a total loss, because it ends with her standing closer to Sheldon than she normally would. He acknowledges it, and gives a tense sigh of resignation.

Bernadette frowns as she glances at the _Sailor Moon_ section—Sheldon's planning something. She finally gets his stiff posture a little more. She wants to ask, but she's pretty sure she just heard a guy _smell her_.

"Sheldon, I'll be in the car," she finally says, and reluctantly buys the first volume of the pocket edition of _Sailor Moon_ so she'll at least have something to read (she doesn't know it yet, but she's going to end up buying the second one in a few days).

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's almost exactly an hour and a half when Sheldon enters her car, a bag of purchases sitting gamely between his narrow knees.

"Back home?" she chirps when he seems lost in thought; her voice causes him to jump a little.

Sheldon shakes his head. "I actually need to discuss an experiment with you; over dinner will suffice."

Bernadette frowns. "Sheldon, I'm not really—"

"It concerns Penny's abrupt withdrawal from the proffered invitation on Sunday," Sheldon interrupts. "I cannot be 100% sure, but I _am_ 99.32% certain that it has everything to do with Leonard."

"Well, probably," Bernadette points out. "It doesn't take a genius to figure that—just a friend."

Sheldon wrinkles his nose in a way that Bernadette's certain means he's holding back—she appreciates his restraint, but comes to the conclusion that he must _really_ want her help if he's putting a filter between his mouth and brain.

"Either way, I do not believe her excuse for not attending to carry enough merit, and I believe her deliberate isolation will have a negative effect all around."

Bernadette resists the urge to say "duh", since Sheldon had shown control earlier. "All of that's true," she finally goes with. "What does that have to do with an experiment of _your_ design, and what on earth could I possibly do?" She turns the car on, realizing they've been sitting there since he got in. "If she wants to be left alone or she wants new friends, that's her decision."

She doesn't say how much it hurts to think Penny may want to ditch all of them in favor of a new social circle.

Sheldon looks at her for a few moments, as if weighing his words with a microgram balance for greater accuracy—he thinks that it's either hurt or anger crossing her face, but he can't be certain.

"By definition, a friend is one who prevents another friend from doing things that would be considered unintelligent or harmful, is it not?"

"Partly," Bernadette edges out—it's a tricky line. "Another definition would be recognizing and respecting when they want to be left alone."

"Penny is social by nature," Sheldon counters.

"That doesn't make it any less awkward for her if we're forcing her to hang out with Leonard." She sighs. "Sheldon, what's this really about? For one, I seriously doubt your ability to conduct an experiment of social design, and two, I don't like uncertainties any more than you do—it's not like you to hold back."

Sheldon sighs, because she's right. He doesn't necessarily concede this; he really thinks the conversational path they've taken has been beneficial. "I have observed that Penny appears to be happier—ergo more amenable to not isolating herself—when she opts to engage in social activities that include my involvement, yours, or both. I hypothesize that, as her _friends_, we attempt to include her presence in other events and such that only require our attendance—"our" meaning you, I, her, or some combination thereof."

Bernadette's lost her voice; her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. She can't think either, is pretty sure she's going to hell (okay, she _knows_ she's headed there), wonders if maybe she ought to join a convent after all, because while she _knows_ what Sheldon meant, it makes her think of other "activities" _entirely_ that they can engage in that require "only their presence"—wait, Sheldon's _yelling_, that's _never_ good—

It's so completely unlike her to lose focus so hard, and while the police officer is very nice, it doesn't stop the cop from writing her a speeding ticket. She bumps her head against the steering wheel after the officer's left, and knows she'll be getting a call from her dad later on, because even though he's retired, he still seems to know _everything_ that's going on with some of the local officers.

Sheldon looks at her disapprovingly. "Dr. Rostenkowski," he tuts delicately at her. "I never expect Penny to follow traffic laws—though she _should_—but I would think your concentration would make you a safer driver than _that_ display."

"Sheldon," Bernadette mutters, head still propped on the steering wheel. "It was a moment of distraction."

He raises an eyebrow and pointedly raises his recently-healed right hand. "Distraction is dangerous when _not_ in a car; I didn't realize my hypothesis would give that much cause for thought."

"No, I see what you're saying; I just—I was just distracted," Bernadette finally agrees, because she's seriously _not_ going to tell Sheldon what was in her head. "But you're still missing the point—if she wants to be alone, you should—as her _friend_—respect her wishes."

"My meemaw has a saying about wishes," Sheldon retorts dryly.

Bernadette knows so many from childhood, she's not sure which one he'd possibly come out with. "Yes?"

"She was always fond of "wish in one hand, spit in the other; see which fills the quickest"," Sheldon recites in such a tone, that Bernadette's pretty sure he heard it a _lot_ as a child.

"It's different with adults," Bernadette points out.

Sheldon sighs. "Regardless, I believe it will help her overall well-being. Are you going to be available for such social events? Or will I have to embark on this experiment by myself?"

Bernadette's not going to let Sheldon commit social suicide with Penny (not that she's an expert on it herself, but she can at least veto ideas that she knows Penny will absolutely hate), and she sighs.

"Fine," she replies. "Chinese night, right?"

Sheldon nods. "It is. Thank you for assistance in this matter, Dr. Rostenkowski—could we possibly do without the legal interactions with local law enforcement next time?"

Bernadette groans. "Bazinga?"

Sheldon taps his nose. It makes her smile—he catalogs it away for further analysis on the second hypothesis he's already working on.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny's dead on her feet by Sunday—it had, surprisingly, been extraordinarily easy to take someone's Sunday shift. It wasn't that people didn't need the hours (_god, her last paycheck was terrible_), but it was still a weekend day. What had been harder was attempting to get someone to take her Tuesday shift—that hadn't gone so well at all, and even after all the cajoling and bargaining, she still hadn't found anyone to cover it.

She grits her teeth as she begins cleaning tables and stacking dinnerware to make it easier for the busboys to clean them off. She's only on for a half hour more, and she's desperately hoping that maybe she can go ahead and skip out now. She's underestimated how tiring three 12-hour shifts, 3 days in a row, would really be, and she's wishing Leonard would just get over it already so she can quit working herself to death just to avoid everyone.

She's not lucky today though, because her manager comes around the corner looking a little apologetic; Penny knows the look well. She's getting ready to be asked to stay.

Her boss, Jackie, is already standing by and helping Penny clear a table. "It's not that I want you to stay; you're about to get overtime as it is," Jackie says, and her tone is a little weary. "Your neurotic Tuesday-nighter just came in with Bernadette."

Penny nearly drops the plate, cranes her head around. Sure enough, Sheldon and Bernadette are waiting at the doorway. "They're not sitting down though," Penny replies, because Sheldon would've already gotten to his usual table by now if they were here to eat. "And Bernadette won't eat here if she can help it."

Bernadette waves a little at her and her cheerful smile makes Penny relax, but only nominally. Sheldon's attempting to smile, but it looks more like he's about to tell someone they'll _never_ find all the bodies.

Penny wipes her hands on her apron though, walks over purposefully. "Kinda working right now, guys. You here to eat? Where's everyone else? And it isn't Tuesday—don't you guys normally get Denny's after paintball anyway?"

Bernadette chews her lip to keep from outright laughing—if she didn't know any better, she'd say that it sounded like Penny kind of missed their presence a little.

"Bernadette and I did not attend, as they decided upon laser tag," Sheldon responds. "I refuse to be anywhere near rented equipment that I can't completely disinfect with my own methods."

Penny looks at Bernadette. "So why didn't you go?"

Bernadette shrugs. "I wasn't crazy about the idea to begin with," she points out. "Amy went along though; she said Howard's kinda bad at it, but Raj did pretty well."

Penny nods. "Still, why are you here now? Did you want your usual table?"

Sheldon shakes his head. "Unnecessary, as it is too early for dinner." His hands look a little jittery, and Penny frowns—it's not the usual tic that usually comes with his inability to lie, but it's still a little anxious. "But dinner is the reason that Bernadette and I stopped here. If you are not too tired from your weekend here, I was wondering if you would be interested in Chinese later."

Penny frowns again. Sheldon's being downright _weird_, Bernadette looks a little amused and a little nervous. Penny realizes she's really got _no_ idea what the plan is—but both of them are in on it.

"Guys, I really am just kind of tired," Penny finally answers. She knows it's weak. "I really just want to go home, soak in a bathtub, and scrub my hair until it's ready to fall out." The smell of cheesecake is actually making her stomach turn a little, as it has the tendency to do whenever she pulls weekends like these. "Maybe another time." She caps her pen, tucks her order book into her apron pocket. "I've gotta get back; I'll see you guys later."

_What the frak was all that_.

Penny's changing out her drawer and reporting her tips when Jackie comes back. "I'm not staying; I'm totally done for at least 24 hours," Penny says firmly.

Jackie shakes her head. "That's not it," she counters. "Burger guy's still out there, but Bernadette said she'd be right back."

Penny frowns. "Weird," she mutters, and finishes with reconciling her tips and orders. She unties her apron and clocks out for the day with a long sigh. She really is _exhausted_, and throwing Sheldon and Bernadette into the mix is just the icing on the cake right now (she likes icing though, especially when she can lick—_bad brain, stopitstopit_).

Sure enough, Sheldon's sitting in one of the waiting booths they shuffle customers to when they're waiting for a table. He looks fairly uncomfortable, and Penny sits beside of him as she rounds the corner. He tries smiling again, and this time, it looks like he's already told the cops they won't ever figure out how many bodies there are, let alone where they're buried.

Penny stares at him, her gaze booking no room for argument. "What the hell are you two up to?" she asks, and her tone is edgy enough that Sheldon's hand automatically comes up to protect his throat.

"We are not "up to" anything," Sheldon responds—it's _technically_ true; Penny's tone implies they're doing something devious; experiments aren't devious. "Bernadette and I had made other plans for today for a number of viable reasons, and she thought it would be nice to see if you wanted to go for dinner and perhaps catch up on all the reasons you've been purposefully hiding from everyone."

Up until the end of his diatribe, the phrasing has been all Sheldon—the end sounds more like Bernadette, or, at the very least, _un_-Sheldon.

"Bernadette told you to say that, didn't she." It's not a question.

Sheldon shrugs, but his eyes are twitching and darting a bit. "I'm not completely socially inept, Penny."

Penny snorts in an unladylike way. "Bull," she accuses. "You're about as attuned to social interaction as I am to whatever it is you do for a living."

"Honestly, Penny—it's theoretical physics; a _gorilla_ could use sign language to say it."

Penny waves off the insult because she's too tired to really argue about it. On top of that, the mechanic's keeping her car until she can come up with the money to pay him (seriously, car repairs shouldn't be that expensive, and hell, it's not like she _knew_ the check engine light would really mean to check the actual engine—of which her car's now got a new one, with the addition of a transmission), but she can't enjoy it until she pays for it. While the nice little check she'd gotten from the pilot had been good, it'd be completely gone with the addition of a new engine and trans).

"Sweetie," she says, "Whatever it is you two are trying to do, I appreciate it—I do. But I needed the hours." She doesn't say it's for her car, because she doesn't want Sheldon offering her money again. "I'm not avoiding anyone; I'm just—" She doesn't finish, and there's bags under her eyes as she yawns instead.

Sheldon sighs. "Then we will bring Chinese to you."

"You're not listening," Penny insists. "I'm too tired to hang out with _anyone_, even if it is only you and Bernadette." She stands, doesn't see Bernadette heading towards the door from outside. "Now listen, I don't know _what_ you two are up to, and I _know_ you're up to something, but I'm not hiding, I'm not avoiding anyone." She narrows her gaze at Sheldon, and finally watches Bernadette breeze through the door; she's carrying take-out bags.

Sheldon stands now too, clasps his hands behind his back. "It's a non-optional social convention when one's friends are attempting to let one know that they are concerned for her well-being."

"I got you egg rolls," Bernadette offers cheerfully. "And crab rangoons."

Penny drops her head. "None of which changes the fact that I'm _tired_. Out of the last 72 hours, 36 of those have been spent here."

Sheldon finally gives a real grin. "Have you been practicing your arithmetic?" He beams at Bernadette, who looks like she wants to gag him. "Very good, Penny! I don't have any chocolate available—"

Penny drops back into the seat. "Not getting out of this, am I?" she mutters.

Bernadette sits beside of her, sets the bags down on the floor. "Nope," she says, and cautiously winds an arm around Penny's shoulders. "It was Sheldon's idea," she edges out. "He says you're intentionally drawing away because of Leonard."

Penny groans. "Alright. Let's go then," she says, and drags herself back to her feet.

"We'll meet you at your place," Bernadette says, and scoops up the bags.

Penny shakes her head. "My car's still at the mechanic's." She doesn't say anything more, and no one wakes her when she falls asleep in the car on the way home.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny wakes up Monday morning, feeling rested and like she's not going to hit someone with whatever's handy if a cheesecake comes anywhere near her. The previous night had gone well, if a little odd, but she hadn't been awake for much of it—every time she _had_ woken, it was to see Sheldon and Bernadette speaking frantically in low, quiet tones, as if they were arguing over an observation they'd both seen differently.

She scratches her head, gives a yawn as she strips down to take a shower. She's not going to lie; the night had been very relaxing and nice, just the sort of thing she needed after her weekend. Sheldon had (predictably) whined enough about movie choices in her apartment that he'd finally left, retrieved a few options of his own, and firmly told them he was _not_ going to be cornered into terrible rom-coms just because he was the only male present.

Bernadette had shushed him, spoken to him quietly while Penny got them drinks to go with their Chinese. She hadn't caught any of it, but she knew a conspiracy when she saw one. Either way, they'd finally settled with X-Men: First Class, just because it had eye candy for the girls and mutants for the singular male.

Penny's mind drifts in and out as she absently scrubs her hair. Her memory of the night was foggy at best, but mostly because she'd dozed off and on through the night, her head rested against Bernadette's shoulder. She thinks she remembers it being Sheldon's at one point—but that's impossible, Sheldon doesn't let anyone really get near him.

No one had poked her to stay awake, no one was asking her if she and Leonard were okay yet, no one asked her how work was going (she did notice that Sheldon was jotting things down in a composition notebook and Bernadette was reading through a thick binder that had more symbols than words).

So all in all, a pleasant evening. It'd been a while since she had one of those.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette reluctantly agrees to go to Olive Garden Monday with Howard and his mother. It's always a vague trial of obstacles to maneuver Mrs. Wolowitz into the ancient minivan (she'd never fit in Bernadette's car, and Howard's still riding the Vespa), but Howard insists that if she doesn't get out for dinner once a week, she'd probably never leave the house, and he'll end up re-enacting "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", except with a heavy-handed sprinkling of crushed sleeping pills to help it along.

She wonders a little what's stopped him from doing exactly that all these years.

She's a little irritated that Raj comes along too—but she also knows and even respects a little bit what an integral part of Howard's life Raj has been. It doesn't make her any more inclined, however, to reconsider trying to get back together with Howard.

Nor does the way Mrs. Wolowitz doesn't seem to realize that she and Howard are taking a break right now—which could only mean that Howard didn't tell her. She's honestly not surprised, but she's not going to play along either.

It's just as much of a trial to get Mrs. Wolowitz back home, and when Bernadette starts to make a kind excusal to leave, she barely gets into "Well, I'll—" before Howard and Raj invite her to a movie. She groans a little, because it's going to mean the earliest show they'll be able to catch will be eight, and it's going to have her home no earlier than midnight.

Bernadette rubs her temples, and then her eyes beneath her glasses. She hadn't slept well Sunday night either, owing to Sheldon giving her copies of all his observational notes from spending the evening with Penny (who had spent most of it asleep on her shoulder, and a little bit of it on Sheldon's, with Bernadette telling him the whole time that it was perfectly alright, and she doubted that Penny's head on his shoulder would murder him outright).

He expects a report from her by Halo night, of which she was now requested to attend (though by the tone of Sheldon's voice, she's pretty sure it wasn't a request, but an order). Additionally, he wants her initial thoughts and potential agreements/arguments as soon as she's read through it. She doesn't mind; she enjoys his lack of bias when it comes to scientific observation.

If she goes to the movies, she won't get the chance to let him know.

"I don't know, Howie," Bernadette edges out as Raj and Howard scroll through the movie offerings on one of their phones. "We all have work tomorrow, and it's kind of late to be taking a movie in." She kind of just wants to go home, curl up with Sheldon's notebook (he's brutally honest; if nothing else, his observations will be wholly objective and she can see for herself if his hypothesis is even supportable), and get to bed.

Howard pouts a little. "I think it'd help us out to spend some more time together—you didn't come on Sunday," he says, and his tone is hurt. "Where were you anyway; you never said."

"I made other plans," Bernadette replies vaguely—it's true, technically, and it won't require her to risk getting Howard angry with Sheldon. It's something that's always been easy, but she fears even now that Howard dumping a glass of water in Sheldon's lap would be the least of Howard's ire.

"Come on, it's just one movie," Howard continues. "It'll give us a chance to get together, hang out a little."

_During a movie, where people don't usually talk about things_, she thinks, but sighs anyway. All potential awkwardness and attraction to Sheldon and Penny aside, she did promise Howard she would at least _think_ about it—they were together for a long time; most people would tell her she shouldn't disregard all of it just over a fight about a silly costume—even though it really wasn't _just_ about the stupid costume. It was that, and so much else.

She feels oddly like she's betraying someone when she finally agrees to go, but she's not sure if it's herself, Penny and Sheldon, or Howard.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon stares at his phone irritably as he pushes around his tangerine chicken (the chicken is shredded, not diced, but honestly, Leonard's probably never going to get it right). Bernadette had said she would text him with her thoughts on his notes from the previous night's activities; he still hasn't heard from her. She'd been vague about her plans this afternoon before finally edging out that she was going to the Olive Garden with Wolowitz and his mother. This was confirmed (and Raj added) when Howard tweeted a picture of the three of them there.

He sighs, because he thought Bernadette was a little smarter than that. If he had read the situation correctly (he's not that good with unspoken social language) and Penny's observations were also to be believed (he had little reason to doubt them), then Bernadette breaking things off with Howard was a good thing.

He's inclined to agree, since Howard tends to show the same lack of respect and concern for Bernadette that Leonard often displays with Penny. He's pretty sure it's not even really on purpose, per se—he's just certain that both the ladies in question deserve better, given their respective talents and intelligences.

Sheldon sighs and puts the chicken down—his appetite is melting away as he thinks about it, stares at Leonard, who's digging into his chicken and broccoli without much conversation passing between them. The grieving period that Leonard normally displays after being rejected by Penny is shorter this time; he's already talking vaguely about an experiment he's to be conducting with Leslie Winkle, who had been all but brow-beaten into accepting additional hands.

Sheldon looks up when he realizes Leonard's talking about said-experiment now. Well, the shorter physicist is actually complaining a little bit, more so than talking about the specifics.

"Honestly, I don't see why she'd hate having some extra help on this," Leonard says, stabbing his broccoli viciously. "It's not hard, just—complicated. She's acting like having my assistance on this is worse than being forced to work with _you_." His voice is pointed, and his lips curve a little at his own joke—there's no one here but Sheldon and Leonard though, so no one's really laughing but Leonard.

"Perhaps she still worries about your scientific integrity," Sheldon offers up, because it's true and to the point—he doesn't see the need to sugarcoat in this situation.

"Oh, come on," Leonard mutters. "That was 3 years ago; let it die already."

Sheldon's used to pushing feelings of an overly emotional nature deep down and away. He calmly wipes his mouth, and decides he's completely done with dinner. Howard's posted another picture of himself, Bernadette, and Raj standing in line at the movie theatre (_that's the theatre that doesn't carry icees at all, what are they thinking_) and he's finding it difficult to keep what little temper he has under his control.

Leonard looks up in mild confusion when Sheldon stands and begins to clear away his dinner. "Not hungry tonight, buddy? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Leonard," Sheldon draws out, and is completely unsure as to why Leonard finds it amusing.

"Come on, that's what women say when something's wrong but they don't want to talk about it," Leonard says, his mirth showing clearly in his features. "What's up?"

"Did it occur to you that perhaps my telling you I'm fine would be a strong, universally-understood, social indicator that I do not wish to talk about it?" Sheldon responds instead, and folds the take-out box with a little more force than necessary. It causes a rip in the side of the box, and he sighs as he takes out plastic wrap to seal it better.

Leonard gets up and starts putting away his dinner as well. "Not really," he answers honestly, and he still looks a little confused. "Usually, you answer honestly or not at all."

Sheldon sighs, finishes putting his dinner away, and rinses the silverware he'd used. He cleans it meticulously, concentrating on the task at hand to distract himself from the behavior around him that's making him angry.

Leonard doesn't seem to be letting it up. "Come on, I'm just trying to help, Sheldon. You seem really bothered. What's wrong?"

Sheldon finishes the task, turns to leave the room.

"Aren't you going to answer me?"

Sheldon does turn at that, gives Leonard a wary look. "You said I generally answer with honesty, or with nothing at all. Consider this nothing at all."

Leonard frowns as Sheldon leaves the room. He finishes cleaning his own dishes from dinner, and glances at the clock. Penny will still be awake—he's hesitant to bother her, given their recent split, but it's not like Sheldon to hold back.

He's a little surprised when she doesn't seem to be in any more of a mood to talk than Sheldon was, but at the same time, he guesses she's still just uncomfortable around him. Their conversation is extremely brief, and he finds himself back at square one rather more quickly than he would like.

He's still wondering a little about the day after the Halloween party; the day he was certain it had something to do with Penny, Bernadette, and Sheldon. He doesn't want to text Bernadette—she's out with Howard and Raj. Penny's a no-go, and Sheldon is, miracle of miracles, saying nothing at this point.

Leonard sighs again, decides some television will relax him a little bit. His phone vibrates—it's Leslie, and the message isn't kind—it's a threat and a promise about academic honesty and scientific trust between peers.

He sighs, tosses his phone aside. It's too early to go to bed, and he doesn't actually want to physically _go_ anywhere. His options are minimized greatly by that fact alone—he opts for a shower, reading up on the experiment Leslie's working on, and then bed, because it's the easiest plan with the least amount of actual thought.

Leonard's okay with the plan, mostly because now that he'd wondered again if those three were in on something, the thought wouldn't leave him alone—Sheldon and Bernadette both had been absent from laser tag. He wasn't surprised on one end of those—the bigger surprise was that Sheldon hadn't been there, and he'd had an overly detailed story for why he couldn't be (which hadn't stopped his fingers from twitching). Neither of them had been by for dinner later either.

Leonard hops in the shower. He'll ask Penny about it in a few days, when she's had time to cool off a little. If she's still not forthcoming, _then_ he'll ask Bernadette, because the microbiologist is just as incapable of lying as Sheldon.

He feels a little satisfied now that he's got a quick plan, and when he returns to his room, dives into Leslie's experimental outline. He's still irritated enough at Sheldon that he doesn't care where his roommate is going when he leaves the apartment.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Leonard decides Halo night will be the best time to try and talk to Penny about it, because Sheldon's been making noises about the fact that Bernadette and Penny are both coming over to participate this time, a fact that seems to take Howard by great surprise.

They're in the cafeteria, and while Sheldon has grudgingly agreed to eat with Howard again, he's taken to wearing a poncho over his clothing to do so.

Howard gives a confused, slightly angry look. "Bernie doesn't play video games."

"Perhaps whoever tried to instruct her as to how to do so was poor at it," Sheldon responds, and his tone is its usual, a deadpan blunt that insults more than observes. "She's not excellent at it, mind you—but she managed to snipe Penny."

Raj looks up. "When was that?"

Sheldon's suddenly interested in his lunch—a salad that he'd made himself at home. He picks at it, and shrugs—it's an uncharacteristic move that says more than his sudden reluctance to speak of it.

"Last Halo night," Sheldon finally responds, because he honestly doesn't see anything wrong with this fact. "As I recall, the three of you decided other activities would be more enjoyable."

"It was a guys' night out; you don't enjoy that sort of thing," Leonard points out, but he's just as confused and hurt as Howard is. "I'd think you would've called us if the girls would be over."

"I'm given to think that your definition of "girls" would include not only Penny and Bernadette, but also Amy as well," Sheldon guesses. "And Amy was not present—it was Penny and Bernadette; the day I had my cast removed."

Howard nods suddenly, as if this makes sense. "How sweet of them to take care of grouchy little you," he says, but the humor in his tone sounds a little manic. "I'll text Bernie and let her know how wonderful she is to do things like that—she doesn't _have_ to, you know."

Sheldon doesn't mention that it was that night that he lost an hour of REM sleep because it had been far more interesting to play with Penny and Bernadette than make sure his brain function would be up to par.

Leonard doesn't appear to be letting go of this, however. "Why didn't you call us? We'd have come to hang out."

"Leonard, all past occurrences of any of my medical ailments would serve as indicators of why you, Koothrappali, and Wolowitz had little desire to be in the apartment that night at all." Sheldon pushes his salad around again. "Bernadette was escorting me to have the cast removed in the first place, and Penny's car is at the mechanic's; we transported her from work to her apartment afterward."

"But you know we're all a little tense since Halloween," Leonard says more quietly while Howard texts on his phone. Raj is listening in, but making sure to have it seem as if he's paying more attention to his food and Howard than Sheldon and Leonard. "That would've been just as good as the laser tag thing we tried to do on Sunday, but then Bernadette was afraid nothing would fit her, and you had some story about why—" It suddenly dawns on Leonard, and he leans forward. "Were you and Bernadette hanging out on Sunday?"

"I believe I'm finished eating; gossip tends to ruin my appetite," Sheldon says abruptly, and gets up. He's only made it halfway through his meal, but his stomach is twisting oddly at the accusatory look on Leonard's face.

Leonard doesn't relent, and follows Sheldon out and into his office. "Are you and Bernadette like…doing something?"

Sheldon gives him a condescending glare. "Really, Leonard; that's ambiguous at best. Define "something"."

Leonard rubs the bridge of his nose. "Are you trying to romantically get together with Bernadette?"

Sheldon snorts. "Hardly. I believe the time away from Wolowitz is serving her well; just as the time away from you that Penny is also receiving is doing the same."

"That's none of your business."

"Penny and Bernadette are just as much my friends as you, Wolowitz, and Koothrappali."

"You know what? You're on your own with this one, because when Howard figures this out, he might actually kill you."

Sheldon gives a breathy huff. "He can _try_." He starts busying himself with some loose papers on his desk, moves his pencil cup around, and finally settles for picking up a few of his new dry erase markers (he gets new ones every week).

Leonard rolls his eyes, misses the very real gleam of defense in Sheldon's face. "Come on, Sheldon. You're taller, but I'd put money on Howard winning any day. Hell, I'd put money on anyone else _but_ you in a physical fight."

Sheldon snorts again, and indicates he's ready for Leonard to leave. He elects not to tell Leonard that just because he'd been bullied a lot in school doesn't mean he was without defenses. He did, after all, grow up in East Texas, and had been forced into peewee football for at least three years as a child (until he talked the coach's ear off for two hours about trajectory and force; the coach had benched him, but let him write the plays instead).

Perhaps he will have to risk Penny's happiness for paintball after all. He dislikes people thinking he is weak; it's not true, for one, and two, it's downright insulting—especially when he feels that he has shown numerous times that he is the opposite.

Sheldon scrawls angrily across the board, tries to calm his mind down. He kind of wishes Penny was here, she'd use her Nebraskan charm and backwoods language to make fun of Howard. Bernadette's presence wouldn't be amiss either; perhaps she'd interrupt his knocking ritual in a bout of mirth again, or at least tell him "there, there".

He shakes his head—the social experiment is for Penny's happiness, not his. His second hypothesis is still being worked on. Either way, it's not always about what _he_ wants—though the argument he makes with himself at that point is that he truly does want Penny to be happy.

Perhaps Halo night will be conducted at a different venue. He makes a note to himself to call Penny's boss later and secure Sunday for her, as Penny will undoubtedly attempt to blow him and/or Bernadette off again.

Sheldon's mind works in various patterns—the best ones are the straightforward ones, often because they're the most honest and direct. Leonard's implication is destroying the well-ordered maze of his mind though, and at every deadend, he finds a ball pit full of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, with Bernadette sitting up in one corner and Penny playing with the atoms until she tugs both of them in with her, and the deadend suddenly isn't quite so bad to be stuck in.

_Dear lord, man—get a grip_.

Sheldon shakes his head sharply, and, for the first time in quite a while, considers leaving early with using the excuse of being sick.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette looks up from Sheldon's well-ordered notes when the knock comes on the door. She pulls out her little stool, and is more than surprised to see Leonard standing there. He looks nervous as a mouse at a cat convention.

She looks wistfully at Sheldon's notebook, and then opens the door. "Leonard?" she asks, and her voice is pitched to convey her confusion.

"Hey, Bernadette," Leonard says uneasily. "Can I come in?"

Bernadette shrugs. "Sure…can I get you anything? Water?"

"No, I'm fine," Leonard declines, and runs a hand through his hair. "I was wondering how you and Howard are doing."

Bernadette picks up Sheldon's photocopied notes, turns it upside down so Leonard won't see the handwriting. "That's not really any of your business, Leonard. Why are you even asking?"

"It just…it just seems like you and Sheldon are spending an awful lot of time together lately, what with Halo night last week, and then Sunday—whatever you two did that day, and now he's talking about inviting you for Halo night again."

Bernadette doesn't lie very well, so she opts with fact. "Well…I've spent time with Howie too," she points out defensively. "Saturday, we took Raj to the Le Brea tar pits again, and Monday, we did dinner with his mother and Raj." She droops her shoulders, hope she looks sufficiently tired enough to throw him off of whatever scent he thinks he has. "It's slow-going, Leonard. He really hurt my feelings."

Leonard sighs. "It was just a costume," he says lightly, and Bernadette gets the same look on her face that Sheldon had gotten the previous night when the Arctic had been brought up. "I get why you're hurt," he finally edges out.

"No, you don't," Bernadette says flatly.

Leonard sighs—this isn't going at all the way he thought it would. "You know, I think I will take some of that water."

Bernadette sighs—she doesn't really want him here long enough to enjoy it, but turns to go to the kitchen to pour two glasses.

Leonard takes the opportunity to sit down, and glance at the photocopied papers on the table. He lifts one edge, recognizes Sheldon's handwriting immediately. He drops it as if he's been burned, and gets back to his feet as Bernadette's coming back with two glasses of water. He drinks some of it hurriedly, and she's frowning at him suspiciously.

"Just…I appreciate your concern, Leonard," Bernadette says, and her tone is still unemotional and numb. "But what's going on between Howard and I is really none of your business. Sheldon and Penny _both_ have been hanging out with me, and I'm not showing favoritism for one or the other."

Leonard nods in agreement, mostly because he just wants to get out of there and see if he can find Sheldon's original notes at the apartment. He can't, for the life of him, imagine why Bernadette would have copies of anything Sheldon's written, not when Bernadette's understanding of physics allows her to understand Leonard's work vaguely at best.

"You're right; I'm sorry. I shouldn't have poked," he says quickly, and he swears mentally, because Bernadette frowns a bit more.

"I know your heart's in the right place," she finally sighs. "But tell Howard if he wants to know how things are going, he should really just ask himself."

Leonard's not breathing a _word_ of this event to Howard, but he nods again. "Sorry again. See you Wednesday?"

Bernadette shrugs. "We'll see."

Leonard leaves with a sigh of relief, and scratches his head. _What the hell is going on?_

Bernadette doesn't look up from Sheldon's notes until about 9:30. She puts them down reluctantly, grabs her keys. Penny's car is still in the shop, and Bernadette needs orange juice. Sheldon's notes are almost enough to convince her that she really did need the grocery item, but not nearly enough to make her able to lie about the way she'll get to the market—it'll take her right by the Cheesecake Factory at about 10pm, when Penny's shift ends.

It _is_ Tuesday—right at the top of Bernadette's list of constants, beside of Sheldon's brutal honesty and Penny's no-bull attitude, is the fact that Tuesday is burger night, and Penny will be there.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	12. The Halo Fatality Certainty

Leonard's run out of immediately easily-accessed options. Bernadette's shut him down, and Sheldon's still taking the "nothing at all" path. He really doesn't want to ask Raj, because then it's pretty much as good as telling Howard. He's really not even sure why he cares so much; he thinks it's because he's trying to look out for Howard's crumbling relationship. He doesn't have the heart to admit that it's a mixture of curiosity, jealousy, and irritation at being left out of the loop.

He convinces himself fairly easily that Penny's really the only one left he could possibly ask, since Amy hasn't been around that much—he hopes she's cooled off by tonight for Halo.

He's a little shocked when he knocks on Penny's door, and doesn't get an answer. What he does get is a text message from her, telling him to go away.

Now he's more confused than ever, and a lot hurt, because she's never—not through all the breaks and awkwardness—denied him the right to at least speak to her before.

Leonard decides to fight fire with fire. He bangs on the door. "That's really mature, Penny!" he shouts, but his voice cracks a little.

She doesn't answer at all to that one.

Leonard sighs—asking her again had really been his last resort.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Despite the initial thought of conducting Halo night elsewhere, Sheldon finds it improbable to do so without raising an eyebrow. Leonard's already tried to talk to him several times, and while Sheldon doesn't feel the need to explain much of anything (he refuses to be the person Leonard blames for his relationship imploding), he—rather simply—does not want to deal with the bluster and hullabaloo that may arise if Sheldon's completely honest.

Bernadette reluctantly enters the apartment with Howard and Raj, the former of the two talking animatedly. She's only come to give Sheldon the report he's expecting, and struggles with the disappointment when Penny's nowhere to be seen. She tries to tell herself that it's her imagination that Sheldon actually seems to brighten a little when he sees her enter. She waves at him with a bit of resignation, and holds up the lab report she'd brought. His observations were—interesting, to say the least, and she kept feeling like he had written the views with a broader implication.

"I'm not really staying," Bernadette says when Leonard offers her a beverage.

Howard looks disappointed. "Sheldon says you played last week."

"And I wasn't very good at it," Bernadette responds blandly.

Sheldon's cheek tics—even worse, Howard notices. What he doesn't see is Bernadette rubbing the frill of her black shrug.

Howard swings an arm around her shoulders. "I heard you were pretty good," he smiles, as if encouraging a child. He's seemingly oblivious to the way Bernadette stiffens and notices the patronizing tone. "We just needed to find you the right game, huh?"

His voice is placating—it makes her teeth grind—not to mention Howard seems to have forgotten it was Halo he'd tried to show her in the _first_ place.

"Dr. Rostenkowski, your handwriting is near-illegible; care to come translate?" Sheldon asks, his tone just condescending enough that Bernadette rules it out that he's attempting to create a diversion.

Bernadette slips from Howard's arm gratefully all the same, and joins Sheldon in the kitchen. "My handwriting's impeccable; yours needs work."

Sheldon snorts. "I'll be more than happy to leave you to Wolowitz's charms next time," he answers disdainfully. "If you wish to escape to Penny's, that will suffice—be sure to record your observations."

"Bernie, you gonna play?" Howard calls; the others are already setting up.

Bernadette gives Sheldon a dry smile. "If I can't blow his head off with a grenade, then where's the fun?"

Sheldon smirks a little; it makes Bernadette's heart skip a beat. "That will be messy; I don't envy having to clean so much bodily fluid from the carpet."

Bernadette smiles—a real one. "Bazinga?" she ask.

He makes her heart stop all together when he taps the very tip of her nose instead of answering.

"Bernadette will be on my team tonight to start; I have the superior playing skills to help a newbie," Sheldon says firmly.

Raj whispers in Howard's ear.

Howard smirks in agreement. "Candy from a baby," he nods.

Sheldon rolls his eyes, deftly flips a controller to Bernadette. "Shall we? Raj, owing to your silence in Bernadette's presence, you will sit the first round out."

Raj nods—he kind of wants to watch the massacre anyway.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny looks up when she hears the chaotic yelling in 4A. She screws her nose up in thought before she remembers it's Halo night. She sighs wistfully—she could use the stress relief right about now. She had seen Sheldon briefly and late in the evening Monday. He had claimed he needed to speak with her about something, and had spent the better part of an hour just talking to her while straightening up her apartment. The cleaning hadn't been odd in the least—

His random chirping had been, as had the thinly veiled irritation with something. Even so, she'd just let him talk because even if he was saying nothing about what was bothering him, it seemed to help him by the time he'd left. She didn't realize until she'd gone to bed that night that it had helped to just listen to his chatter without feeling obligated to say anything of substance.

Tuesday night had been burger night—but only Sheldon had been there. Apparently, the boys hadn't taken too kindly to Sheldon's newest list of reasons as to why Leonard's work was derivative at best, and why Howard's master's degree was on a similar level to Leonard's work—it had included a full-on comparison-contrast, for god's sake.

Again—not odd that Sheldon had pissed off the guys. What had been weird was the fact that Sheldon seemed proud of not being with Howard, Raj, or Leonard. He'd even asked her a bit about Bernadette—Penny could only assume Howard had asked him to, or offered up something big to get him to do it.

None of it was implausible though, however, so Penny had done his order, served his food. She ended her shift right at 10pm that night, grateful that she was getting out on time for once, only to find Bernadette waiting at the door. Her voice seemed a little higher than normal, and she seemed a bit irritated, just as Sheldon had the night before.

Bernadette chatted that she knew Penny needed a ride, and she'd been out for orange juice anyway, and how was Penny's night? By the time they'd reached Penny's house, it had turned into a girl's night that ran later than usual, but, like Sheldon, Bernadette's irritation was completely gone by the time she left, and Penny felt better too (tired, but definitely better than she had in a while—it was happening a lot with those two, but she's not inclined to analyze that particular thread of thought).

It made her head hurt and her heart jump a little madly, because for one, she was going insane with confusion and two, it felt oddly like they were being _intentionally_ playful.

True, Sheldon being "playful" had been his rearranging of her shoes (_"But Penny; it's a bazinga because orange heels shouldn't be next to black work shoes!_"and a tap to her nose, which had frozen her long enough for him to walk away).

Bernadette's idea of the same was to bring photos of alien-like creatures that she'd snapped at work with a fancy microscope that Penny couldn't remember the name of. It had been kinda nice, seeing Bernadette get so animated and touchy-feely as they named each organism (well, Penny was going for muppets; Bernadette would tell her the actual name). Then Bernadette had leaned against her side—stiffly at first—and announced they were watching a movie she'd brought with her, because she thought Penny would like the artwork.

Penny had drawn the line and said they could do it another night—she needed time to think (she told Bernadette honestly that it was past midnight; it was just too late).

The yelling interrupts her thinking, and she glances up curiously. She's pretty sure she just heard a female voice screeching—

She's about ready to go over and make sure no one's dead when the knock comes on the door. It's soft-ish, and she's not surprised when Bernadette's behind it. The shorter girl looks a bit manic, and her eyes are intensely blue, though Penny's pretty sure it's with anger.

"How's Halo night?" Penny asks.

Bernadette storms past her. "How do you even _stand_ it? I really thought Howie was going to cry when I finally killed him." She flops on Penny's couch, swings her legs because her feet don't quite reach the floor if she sits back all the way. "Honestly, Penny…it was just _one time_; he'd already got me so much! Finally, Sheldon set it up—"

Penny sits beside of her, offers a soda. "Standard deviation play?" she asks.

Bernadette nods. "He said it was the easiest he could teach me on such short notice, because all of the other stuff you taught me wasn't _working_, and Howie started teasing me, and then Leonard said something awful, and—"

Penny frowns. "What did Leonard say?" she asks, and there's steel in her tone.

Bernadette gulps diet coke. "Nothing horrible, it's not a big deal. He's just mad because after I got Howie, Sheldon got him, and Raj started laughing at both of them." She sees a run in her black, opaque tights. She wants to pick at it, but then she'll have to take them off, and she's not a fan of running around bare-legged.

Penny's wearing daisy dukes.

"What. Did. He. Say?" Penny asks, punctuating each word.

"He just said that Sheldon must've been right about you from the first time _you_ played, so I asked, and Leonard told me that when you first played, Sheldon said you cheated because no one could be as hot as you and still be that good at Halo."

It was a three-punch insult, and Penny's pretty sure Leonard didn't even realize how much that would smack everyone involved—either she's a cheater, Bernadette's a cheater, they're both cheaters, or they're not as attractive as they think they are, or Sheldon's behavior from over three years ago hasn't changed, and he still hates pretty much everyone. She's also pretty sure Leonard didn't expect her to know what he'd said.

Then again, he's not expecting the foot she's about to put in his ass either, but it is what it is.

Penny gets to her feet, throws on a pair of flip-flops and a hoodie.

"Penny, where are you going?"

Penny glares. "That was hateful of him to say, especially when he's just whiny about getting killed by Sheldon because you got Howard."

Bernadette gets up with a sigh. "You know it's not worth it."

Penny stares down at her. "You know that's the same thing as saying _you're_ not worth it." Her hands tremble a little by her hips, she wonders if it's anger or the desire to give Bernadette a hug and stroke her hair until the hurt leaves her smaller frame. "And I won't have _any_ of my friends thinking that about themselves."

Bernadette chews her lip, finally gives into the desire to pick the run in her stockings. It comes loose and unravels, and she snags Penny around the waist just as Penny gets to the door.

"Just—just leave it _alone_," Bernadette says. "It's not important."

Penny sighs, lets her forehead rest against the door—to her, Bernadette's all but repeated the previous sentiment—if she thinks it's not important, it's because she thinks _she's_ not important. Penny refuses to let her think that.

Penny turns, gives into the urge to hug her. "Fine," she finally mutters. "He's getting talked to about it though."

Bernadette's head snaps up, and her mouth is about to open when Penny speaks again.

"Not tonight—but he needs to know that he hurt you." Penny gives in again, brushes Bernadette's hair from her face, just as she's done any number of countless times before in the past. She almost freezes there, her fingers by Bernadette's chin; Bernadette's arms are still tight around her waist. "Let's watch that movie you left here; I haven't looked at it yet."

They're barely half an hour into the movie (Penny's a little horrified—so far, Robin Williams has gotten married, had 2 kids, lost 2 kids, and then lost his life) when there's a knocking at the door.

Knock, knock, knock. "Bernadette and Penny." Knock, knock, knock. "Bernadette and Penny."

Penny's the one who gets up this time, because Bernadette looks emotionally wrought, and opens the door before he can finish.

Sheldon looks a bit surprised that it's Penny, but he raps on her doorjamb. "Bernadette and Penny."

"How'd you know Bernadette was even here?" Penny asks, leaning against her door a bit.

"It was an obvious deduction, made easier by the fact she texted me as much when I asked after her well-being after Leonard's crass show of poor sportsmanship."

"Don't forget, he basically said that Penny cheats at Halo too," Bernadette pipes up from the couch. She throws popcorn into her mouth; Robin Williams is getting ready to have fun in paint-heaven; she's always loved this part.

"So what did you need?" Penny asks, and he looks a little twitchy for a minute. "Did you yell at Leonard?"

Sheldon nods. "He deserved it," he says as if this explains it all.

"Bernadette wouldn't let me," Penny grumbles. "Was it worth it?"

Sheldon shrugs one shoulder. "It got me expunged from the apartment out until bedtime."

Penny laughs a little. "Must've been good."

"It doesn't bear repeating," Sheldon says, his eyes darting meaningfully towards Bernadette, who looks a little reluctant.

Bernadette sighs—she didn't want anyone to get _yelled_ at. Sure, it was thoughtless, but Leonard's not malicious—just immature sometimes. She turns to say as much, but Penny's already putting a pot of water on to boil; Sheldon's taken what Bernadette can only assume is "his spot" within Penny's apartment.

"He was thoughtless and rude, and his carelessness with the English language has hurt your feelings, as did Wolowitz's laughter at what was most certainly _not_ a good joke," he says stiffly. He slides his glance in Penny's direction; she motions at him to keep going. Sheldon sighs; he's not good at this, but he desperately wants that wet look off of Bernadette's face. He jerkily taps her shoulder a couple of awkward times until it slows and his hand simply rests on her shoulder. "There, there."

Penny smiles, hears the kettle start to whistle.

Sheldon's grateful, because at least this time, Bernadette doesn't burst into tears like the last time he'd told her this. She does give him a smile though, and he nods sharply, as if this concludes their business for the evening.

Bernadette rewinds the movie to start from the beginning.

Its Saturday night laundry, and Penny looks up when Sheldon enters the room. She knows she's early, but she's hoping it will catch him a little off-guard to see that she's arrived somewhere before his scheduled time.

He raises an eyebrow at her when he enters; his laundry basket is cocked on his hip. The clothing is folded inside the basket, she notes with amusement, and she leans against one of the washers. Her two loads are already in spin cycle.

"Good evening, Penny." He settles his basket on the edge of the vibrating washer, and begins to meticulously sort various clothing into the remaining two washers. "You're early."

_Not as off-guard as she'd hoped_. "So what's with you and Bernadette?" she asks.

Sheldon lifts an eyebrow again. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that."

"Do I really have to spell it out?"

"No, I'm genuinely certain I don't know what you mean—asking "what's with" a pair of people implies any number of various possibilities, and it also makes the false assumption that I would know much of anything in Bernadette's mind at all."

Penny narrows her gaze. "Not buying it."

"Well, if you could, perhaps, be more specific—by an exponential amount, mind you—I might be able to answer your query with at least my side of it."

Penny blows her hair out of her face. "You two have been hanging out a lot lately. I was just wondering if you two were like…y'know."

"Know what?"

"Well…thinking about dating or something."

"Penny," Sheldon sighs, and closes the washer after adding precise amounts of soap. "It's more of an experiment than anything else, one which required Dr. Rostenkowski's assistance."

"She plays with germs and stuff."

"Microbes," Sheldon corrects, turns the dials on the washer. "That does not bar her from being able to loan her considerable intellect to an experiment of my design."

"Then what's the experiment?"

Sheldon seems to consider her question for an abnormally long amount of time—she knows that Einstein once said something about time being relative (honestly, something about a hand on a stovetop being forever, she thinks) but she's actually loaded her clothes into the dryer and started the cycle before he responds.

"We are conducting a social experiment on maintaining the well-being of friends," he finally answers, and it's just vague enough that it makes Penny frown. "In as so much that my experiment is designed to attempt to deduce whether or not true friends make each other happy, or if the benefits of such a relationship are equally worth the potential risk one takes when allowing a person into their life."

Penny frowns, wrinkles her nose as she tries to translate. "So…you're basically trying to see if friends are worth it." She squints. "And if they actually make each other—friends, anyway—happy or not."

This does make his eyes tic a little, and she suddenly realizes it's because he was spouting off as much vague mumbo-jumbo-jargon as he could in order to throw her off intentionally. That pisses her off a little, because she's genuinely curious, and he's deliberately avoiding a straight answer. It's unlike him, and she approaches his buffer zone.

Sheldon doesn't back away; he looks like he wants to. He's gritting his teeth audibly.

"What's this really about?" she asks. "Is it because everyone's sort of broken up right now? Things like that pass, y'know. Bernadette and Howard—" She stops, because she really doesn't want them to get back together, not when Howard's still so oblivious to how much Bernadette does just to make him happy, and how little he gives back to her in return. "Well. You know how they are—they squabble a lot, but who knows—maybe it'll happen."

She turns to absently check the dryers—it's nowhere _near_ time for them to be done, but she needs something to do, because her throat sort of closes when she thinks about Howard and Bernadette getting together again. Sure, she set them up—and every now and again (more often than she would like) she regrets it more than she does moving in with Kurt.

Because she's turned away, she misses the way Sheldon's fingers are making piano-like motions against the washer—it's soft enough that she doesn't hear the drumming.

"And you and Amy…well, we all know that'll take forever. You're a special guy, she's kind of special herself. Maybe you both just need some time to set things straight," Penny offers, and hates the way her voice cracks a little.

This _so_ isn't fair, not when all she really wants to do is tell them both how much she can't stop thinking about either one of them, how isolating and running is the only thing she knows to do—it's better for everyone involved, she _knows_ this. She's just some dumb kid from Omaha, for christ's sake, and—

_Holy crap on a cracker, where did he come from_?

Sheldon's joined her at the dryer, close enough that his arm is almost touching hers. "And you and Leonard?"

Penny stares at him when she hears the unfamiliar line of steel threaded in his voice. "Fat chance of that," she mutters, staring down at the dryer.

Sheldon taps his fingers on the dryer, weighs his words carefully. The movements are even and controlled, like the calm weather of a late autumn. The chill is radiating from him though, it kind of makes Penny want to move away; she feels like she might've made him angry.

"Then at least one of us will have been intelligent in relationship matters," Sheldon finally says in a calculating tone. He's not looking at her, but feels her staring at him. He finally does glance at her with a tilt of his head; the look in his face is slightly weary and resigned. "Has it possibly occurred to you that it was by design that your involvement was required in the social activities between Bernadette and I?"

"Well, no—who really thinks of that?" Penny answers, and christ, it's like when she lost it and kissed Bernadette all over again. Her clothes are still in the dryer, and she backs away from Sheldon finally, giving in when she never has before because she's not entirely sure what he's driving at.

"It's a _social_ experiment designed to gauge one's well-being and happiness by placing that person in situations that render them happier than they would be with others," Sheldon continues, and doesn't follow her. His feet shuffle like he wants to, but he can't quite bring himself to do so.

"You guys are _experimenting_ on me?" Penny asks, and her voice cracks again.

"Not necessarily," Sheldon retorts dismissively. "I requested that Bernadette attempt to involve you in activities that do not include Leonard, Wolowitz, or Koothrappali, and I would also do the same."

"Sounds like an experiment," Penny counters, and she's a little mad, because it's like he's trying to train her all over again with positive reinforcement—chocolate's harmless compared to actually controlling who she does and doesn't hang out with.

She's almost a little grateful though—it probably explains why Leonard's been easily avoided since Halo night (though if she's being honest, she might've punched him at the first opportunity).

"It's a hypothesis more than anything, one that's being supported. Have you not been happier in the time since terminating your relationship with Leonard?" Sheldon replies, and it makes her freeze at the folding table, her back to him.

"You don't know what you're messing with," Penny finally says, drops her head. Of _course_ she'd read too much into everything, this was all some—some—_stupid_ experiment on her, how could she have been so fucking _dumb_? Here she's been, freaking out about how she wants to have what Sheldon might call a good ole fashioned love-in with both of them, and it's all because they've been controlling who she hangs out with—

_Shit, he's goddamn fast_. He's right beside of her again, and this time, they _are_ touching, and he's not moving away.

"What was it you said once?" Sheldon asks, and his tone is condescending, as if she doesn't know he doesn't have an eidetic memory, and _shit_, she knows what he's about to say. "My ken could kiss your Barbie, I believe was the colloquial used."

"You can't mess with people like this."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. You would have avoided Leonard on your own," Sheldon replies, and the hairs on his arm are raised from where Penny's touching him. He tries to analyze whether or not it feels good, compares it to when his hand ghosted over Bernadette's as she'd tried to comfort him in the car days ago. It's making his skin tingle, but he can't decide if it's pleasant yet or not. "And you _have_ been happier."

"You just don't get it, do you," Penny snaps at him, and the irritation and frustration are running lines of cold tension straight through her veins. It's merciless, the way her hands would be shaking if they weren't gripping the folding table.

"I'm fairly certain that I do not."

Penny whirls on him, it takes him by surprise and he immediately backs into the dryer, hands catching the edge to support himself. She follows though, invading his personal space. He tries not to be frustrated, because he's done the same thing twice on purpose in order to throw her off; she's playing his rules.

"I kissed Bernadette thinking something else _entirely_," she hisses at him, and he sees the full weight of her hurt and ire crossing her face. His eyes dart down; her hands are shaking. "I've been thinking this _whole time_ about the _worst things ever_ about both of you, and you have the utter gall to tell me what a big fat joke—"

"Penny—"

"This whole thing has been!" she finishes at him, and pokes him viciously in the chest. "I feel like an _idiot_, don't you get it?"

"Penny—"

"You don't get to talk!" she snaps at him.

Sheldon sighs—he's not entirely sure what she's talking about, but the rising color in her cheeks and her dilated pupils are making him shift awkwardly against the dryer, and his hands grip tighter in order to control himself. She's standing too close, he can feel her breathing on him, she smells like vanilla (Bernadette must've been the rosemary, his mind supplies helpfully).

She's still going on, but he hasn't been listening. It dawns on him a moment too late exactly _what_ constitutes (in Penny's words) as the worst things ever, and before he can stop it, the possibilities are running through his mind like a badly connected satellite channel. It's in flashes, ones he can't stop, and his knuckles are white from gripping, his right hand is hurting because it's _still_ not quite back to normal.

Penny's stopped talking, he realizes, and she's staring at him.

"What the hell do you even have to say for yourself?" she snaps, hands fisted on her hips.

Sheldon's fingers twitch. His cheek is next. The dryer dings behind them, he knows the clothing isn't done, couldn't possibly be—Penny had only put them in twenty minutes ago, she's still staring at him and waiting for him to speak, and her eyes are green like pine trees. There's flecks of gold around the pupil.

He's not sure of what he could possibly say right now to get her into his head. He's not sure he wants out of it all that badly. So he does the only possibly logical thing he can do—it's always back to Occam's razor, he finds.

He kisses her. She yelps into his mouth, makes a move to shove him back. He turns them so she's against the dryer, tries to pour everything he's thinking, everything he knows, everything he _wants_ as he traps her against the machine, arms locked on either side of her. She's got her fists against his chest, as if she's going to rap against them, when suddenly, she winds her fingers into his Flash jersey and yanks him closer.

He can't stop the groan, isn't sure he wants to. One of her hands is dragging through his hair, he unlocks one of his arms to jerkily touch her waist.

It's Penny that pulls back.

"I seriously can't believe you," she says at him, and there's something suspiciously wet about her eyes now, and her face looks the way it does when Leonard makes her feel stupid.

"Penny—" he tries for the third time, but she's already gone.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	13. The Paintball Excursion

Penny slams her door behind her, swears when she realizes she left her laundry downstairs. She'll wait till Sheldon's done to retrieve it. She presses her fingers to her eyes and rubs them until they feel raw and swollen. It's the only thing she can think to do to stop the frustrated tears from falling. She's out of alcohol, otherwise she's pretty sure she'd be testing out how fast she can get drunk.

She doesn't know how long she's sat against her door when the knocking starts—it's not Sheldon.

"Penny?"

It's Bernadette.

Penny says nothing, holds her breath instead. She doesn't want to see either one of them right now. The knock comes again.

"Penny, please? Sheldon says he's upset you, and he's not really sure what to do about it—well, that's not _exactly_ what he said, because you know Sheldon. The day he admits he's wrong is the day they find a cure for rhinitis." Penny hears a little bit of shuffling. "I brought your laundry up."

Penny still doesn't move.

"I know you're in there; I can see your shadow under the door." Her voice is pitched differently this time—it's not…_anger_, precisely, but it's different. "I know you're mad…but he really was just trying to make sure you didn't have to be around Leonard. He's pretty much done the same thing with Howie and me." Penny hates how she still calls him Howie, but still says nothing; she hears a resigned sigh instead. "Do you really think hanging around Leonard after breaking up is what you would have done anyway? I know you think we took a choice away, but isn't it the same as supporting and reinforcing your original decision?"

Penny bites her lip, refuses to respond. They were controlling her social life—kind of—so she's not biting on the lure (well, she's biting her lip to keep herself from opening the door).

"No, she won't open the door. Are you really surprised?" is what Bernadette says next, and Penny wonders who asked, though she's pretty sure she knows. "She feels like we were experimenting on her and controlling who she got to see."

"Well, we _were_." Sheldon—and he's _so_ not helping their cause. "However, she reaped the benefits of all the mental work my mind sowed."

"That's not the point—she's not _stupid_, and by thinking she doesn't know who she should hang out with, we made the assumption that it's because she doesn't know any better."

"Past actions would indicate that sometimes, she does not."

Penny elbows the door. They stop talking for a moment—it's not like they didn't know she'd been listening this whole time anyway, and she hears Sheldon take another breath before he continues.

"What I _mean_ to say is that this experiment wasn't to control the _specifics_ of who she spent her time with—the original hypothesis was only that she showed an observable difference in her overall happiness when in mine, yours, or both of our presence compared to anyone else—which we _supported_ by the way. She was always more than able to busy herself with other activities. Additionally, as a side note? She _did_ make other plans last Sunday, ergo—we controlled _nothing_ but how often we visited."

Sheldon sounds huffy by the end, and Bernadette's the next one to let out a little sigh.

"If she had allowed me to _explain_ that instead of…of…" There's a pause, where Sheldon actually honest-to-god _stutters_ for a minute, followed by a whine of exasperation.

Penny jumps when the knocking starts again.

Knock, knock, knock. "Penny." Knock, knock, knock. "Penny."

Knock, knock, knock. "Penny." The third round was Bernadette.

"Bazinga?" Sheldon mutters.

Penny sighs. Her laundry _is_ out there, and while she's not sure she overly believes Sheldon's logic, he'd sounded sincere. He was incapable of lying.

"Come on, Sheldon. I don't think she's going to let us in."

"This is utterly ridiculous. Don't interrupt this time, Dr. Rostenkowski." And he starts another round of knocking.

Before he can finish the third one, Penny finally opens the door. He looks a little ruffled. Bernadette's sitting on top of the basket of folded laundry; Penny's grandmother's quilt is on top. Sheldon's arms are crossed against his chest, and there's still a faint stain of color high in his cheeks.

"You didn't let me knock properly," he says accusingly to Bernadette, as if this were the reason Penny's opened the door.

Penny just stares at them both for a minute. She actually kind of wants to strangle Sheldon and make Bernadette watch, the way they used to make condemned prisoners watch other executions.

"Thanks for folding my laundry," Penny says as Bernadette gets up and hands Penny the basket.

Sheldon shifts his own load to his other hip. "Given your behavior in the laundry room, I believe a return favor is in order."

There's still some tension, but Bernadette can't help the amusement when Penny's cheeks stain darkly.

Penny sets her laundry to the floor _far_ too carefully, crosses her arms as she stares at them both. "I owe you one, huh?" she asks.

Sheldon bristles, his fingers are gripping his basket tightly. His eyes keep darting to where Bernadette's twisting her purse strap—he doesn't stop her because at least it's not her clothing.

"Alright," Penny says evenly in a dead-mimicry of Sheldon's tone. She takes a deep breath. "Paintball with _everyone_ tomorrow."

Sheldon twitches. "That's not on tomorrow's—_ow_, Bernadette!"

"And we're on the same team. Bernadette's quick, it'll be an advantage," Penny finishes when Sheldon opens his mouth again. She narrows her gaze. "And lastly."

Bernadette looks a little fearful and properly scolded; Sheldon looks annoyed and reluctant.

It has Penny grinning like an idiot when they both end up with identically stunned faces after she kisses them both briefly on the cheek and shuts her door. She's sure they hear her wild laughter, but hopefully, that will be a lesson to the both of them on social experiments.

Bernadette's face is about the color of a tomato; Sheldon's has drained all together. She rubs her cheek, shares a quick, withering look.

He seems to pick up on it (or he thinks she's constipated; he's never good with this). "Bazinga." He clutches his laundry basket tightly, walks to his door. "Goodnight, Dr. Rostenkowski."

Bernadette stands there for a good five minutes before she realizes her feet can move. Yeah—she definitely needs to call her sister, Sam.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXX

Leonard looks a bit confused and a lot suspicious when Sheldon tells him they're going for paintball in the morning. He turns away from his computer, notices the high color in Sheldon's face.

"Tomorrow's not paintball."

Sheldon stiffens, his back still to Leonard. He hates what comes out next, but he knows that it will be the most expedient way to get Leonard to stop—well, being _Leonard_.

"Penny and I will be riding with you—Bernadette will have Wolowitz, Koothrappali, and Amy with her. Best get to bed early—I fell behind on laundry owing to working out the logistics for tomorrow."

Predictably, Leonard seems to have only heard one thing. "Penny's going?"

Sheldon sighs. "I thought that much was clear. _Everyone_ is going, if the plan bears reiteration."

Leonard is almost painfully cheerful the rest of the night.

Sheldon sleeps poorly, plagued by dreams where he actually understands the paradigm shift that has taken place between himself, Penny, and Bernadette. He is keenly aware of the stereotypical male fantasies—Wolowitz still violates his e-mail policy on a regular basis, often using dummy addresses in order to bypass his (usually) reliable spam filter.

As such, he is not entirely certain how to progress. He doesn't deny the relatively high attractiveness of either woman—and though he generally is able to school his mind against such urges, he finds that in the past weeks, it has become increasingly difficult to do so.

He rubs his cheek as he begins to finally drift off. She had kissed Bernadette first—it was quick, more a smudge of the mouth than an actual kiss—but he wonders if he'd be able to taste Bernadette on her lips if it had been more intimate. There's a part of his brain immediately screeching about germs, microbes—another part (that sounds a heck-fire a lot like his mama giving him "the talk" when he was 7), tells him that bees don't mix with bees, and birds shouldn't be interested in it anyhow.

It's the voice that sounds like Penny, telling him that she doesn't do war—she'd much rather play love any day.

The most terrifying aspect of it all was how he liked the last voice the most, and thus, it was the one he was most inclined to listen to.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

Bernadette's pretty sure she needs to pray.

The need to do so honestly hasn't been in her life for quite some time. She tosses in bed, anxious about Penny's actions tonight, nervous about failing tomorrow. That makes the third time she and Penny have kissed, and she's 100% sure that out of those three times, she'd felt it all the way down to her toes, even though the last one was on the cheek.

Bernadette turns over in bed, wondering why on earth Penny would insist on everyone's attendance. It doesn't occur to her that Penny is attempting an experiment of her own. Bernadette flips in bed again, wonders how Sheldon would kiss.

She sighs, frustrated with herself and her wayward thoughts. Maybe confession would be a better option, except she's pretty sure her rosary is in a box on the top shelf in her closet, and shoved all the way to the back (honestly, it's wherever the box landed when she'd thrown it).

Bernadette brushes her fingers over her cheek. She's definitely wondering how Sheldon would kiss. The surprise unfurls in her chest right along with the white spark of pleasure at the train of thought.

With another sigh, Bernadette decides she's pretty glad about paintball tomorrow—it'll give her the stress relief she's so desperately needed for over a month.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's early when Penny meets them in the hall, already geared and ready. She's wearing dark-colored cargo pants, and a somewhat frighteningly large number of clips for her chosen weapons.

"Ready?" Her mask is dangling from a belt loop, a black ballcap from her finger. A yellow Batman logo keeps flashing in and out of sight as she bounces it restlessly.

Leonard nods, giving her a half-awake smile (he's still working on coffee). "What brought this on?" he asks.

"Guess I just needed to get out and _experiment_ a little," Penny replies.

Leonard tilts his head at her emphasis. "How so?"

Penny points to the handguns in the holsters on her belt. "Haven't broken these in yet," she says. She'll never tell any of them, but it was Leslie Winkle who showed her where to buy them.

When they reach the ground floor, Leonard leaves to go bring the car around, because he'd had to park further away than usual the night before, and he doesn't want to hear Sheldon talk about conspiracies to tire him out through walking to the car to gain an advantage today.

"You never answered my text last night," Penny says when Leonard's turned the corner.

Sheldon gives her a suffering sigh. "I'm given to think you have a plan."

"Damn right I do. Do you have it or not?"

"Yes!" He sounds a little incensed, and it makes her smile as he hands over the Ka'a cards he'd taken from Leonard's desk. "I still don't understand what you could _possibly_ want with those."

"You'll see." She waves at Leonard so easily that Sheldon narrows his eyes. "Oh, _relax_, Shelly."

Sheldon begins to argue until his mother's nickname drops from her mouth, and he gives her a shocked stare. "Did you just call me _Shelly_?"

Penny grins. "You never said anything about _Shelly_ when you agreed to look at my contract."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's chilly when they meet up outside the paintball arena. It's fairly early in the morning, and the only groups really around besides their own are a couple of competition teams that the boys are somewhat familiar with (mostly because they're good at staying out of each other's way). Bernadette looks a little strained, Howard looks a little apologetic, and Amy's looking at Raj the same way she does brain tissue.

Penny pulls out the Ka'a cards. "Random cards to all; the three highest go on one team, the other four can either be one team or split into pairs. Since Amy knows _nothing_ about Ka—"

"It's Ka'a," Howard points out.

Penny hands a card to Amy. "She draws first."

The cards get dealt (Amy's somehow managed to end up with the Enchanted Bunny; Penny doesn't seem terribly surprised).

Sheldon's not sure exactly how she pulled it off (considering Penny knows as much about Ka'a as he understands _why_ he'd want to kiss the two blonde girls of their group completely senseless), but before he can demand a different way to pick teams, he, Bernadette, and Penny are discussing strategy in a rundown shed.

Bernadette looks scarily like an assassin (albeit a nervous one) in her gear. She's clutching her paintball rifle like a lifeline. "I _really_ don't know about this," she edges out. "Penny, what on earth were you thinking?"

Sheldon looks slightly put out as well. "Unless you're planning on picking them off one by one—and might I point out that while we are both excellent shots, I would _hardly_ call it sniper material—we also don't know what the others are doing, team-wise—"

"That's exactly what we're going to, pick them off one by one," Penny replies easily, and her gaze falls on Bernadette.

Sheldon sees it, and immediately launches into defense-mode. "Penny, you can't be _certain_ that Bernadette can shoot that accurately!"

Penny lifts an eyebrow. "Really."

"Yes, really! I have no reason to believe she—" He cuts off, mostly because a paintball has just splattered the wall by his head; it's close enough that he feels paint flecking onto his neck. He jumps, glares at her.

Bernadette still looks nervous, but she's holding the rifle more steadily now. "Did you miss the cop's daughter conversation?"

"Clearly."

Penny drapes an arm around both their shoulders and feels Sheldon stiffen and Bernadette flinch. She's decided she's doing this—the kiss with Sheldon had made her toes curl, and the ones with Bernadette were all hazy sensation and hot breath—and she'll be damned if she backs down now.

"So. Here's the plan. Round one goes to Bernadette."

Sheldon makes a strangled sound in his throat at the close proximity before he plucks Bernadette's rental rifle from her hands and switches his own back into them before she can make a sound. When he gets a curious look from both of them, he only lifts an eyebrow before stepping away from Penny's hold.

"It has greater accuracy than the run-of-the-mill, used-up weapon Bernadette has rented," he tells them, as if it were obvious.

Bernadette hefts it, and begins to flip her visor down. It's clear and it makes the glare of the sun a little brighter when she pokes her head cautiously out the door. The smack of paintballs has her jumping back inside.

Penny lifts her tinted visor off, hands it to Bernadette. "Go get 'em."

Bernadette smiles faintly—she's really not sure about this. She looks down the side of the rifle Sheldon's handed her, fires a couple of shots with actual aim—it makes her a little more sure, and she darts out the door.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Leonard and Amy opt to go one way, Raj and Howard the other. Everyone but Amy already knows that Sheldon and Penny are ruthless, but they also know that the duo rarely resorts to straight-hiding—only one joke had ever been made about how Penny and Sheldon like seeing their kill-shots face-to-face.

The problem with the singular joke on the matter was that it was sort of true.

Leonard's regretting having chosen Amy. She's quick (something about catching monkeys, she'd said) but her trigger finger's _really_ happy to be on said mechanism. He keeps trying to shush her; she _knows_ Sheldon's got Vulcan hearing.

He's crouched in a small ditch with her; it's a tight fit at best. He peers around carefully, concentrating on looking for Penny's signature ponytail of bright hair. He's almost sure he's seen it when the familiar rat-a-tat-tat accosts his ears as Amy's rifle goes off. He groans.

"_Amy_," Leonard hisses. "They'll _hear_ you—Raj?!"

Sure enough, Raj, who's wearing a tinted visor, is gaping at the orange paint splattered over his chest. He shifts his glare to Amy, who looks sheepishly proud.

"I thought it was Bernadette," she says apologetically, "Her visor is a close approximation of Raj's, and Penny gave her a dark baseball hat when we began." She squawks when a bright splat of blue paint erupts over Leonard's chest.

Raj and Leonard look around a bit wildly—it's not like Sheldon or Penny to play sniper-in-the-grass at _all_. Leonard crouches in front of Amy to act as a shield, and ends up taking another one for the neurobiologist.

"Find Howard—we're out till next round," Leonard mutters.

"How am I supposed to locate Howard without speaking, pray tell?" Amy asks, and there's finally a hint of irritability in her voice.

Leonard flops against the side of the ditch and Raj joins him. "Carefully."

Amy cautiously (albeit a bit humorously) sneaks away.

Raj looks at Leonard once she's disappeared into the trees. "How the hell did she think I was _Bernadette_?"

Leonard shrugs. "Penny did throw her a baseball cap before we started. You know how hard this stuff is to get out of hair."

"Don't I know it," Raj responds, running a hand his cap to smooth his own down. "Who the hell got us anyhow? Sheldon's a good shot, but dude—not _that_ good. I didn't even _see_ anyone."

"Penny likes the surprise of her victim seeing her. Bernadette?"

Raj considers. "She's tiny—she could be anywhere."

"Yes, but is she that good? These guns aren't exactly built for accuracy."

"I don't know, dude…her dad _was_ a cop."

The answer to the question of Bernadette's shooting ability comes when Howard joins them in the ditch, a single splatter against his chest plate.

"Who the frak is sniping? I didn't even _hear_ the damn gun, I don't—wait, where's Amy?" Howard asks the minute he's down.

"She never found you?" Raj wonders.

Howard shakes his head. "No, but when we do find her, can we go ahead and eliminate her from the next round? She kept shooting random bursts while yelling my name."

"Dude," Raj chuckles. "That's what _she_ said."

Leonard sighs. "We probably shouldn't eliminate her either—she's the only one still going."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon pouts, having not left the shed since the round started. "This isn't fair," he mutters.

Penny's on the bench net to him, handguns unused and her arms crossed behind her head. "Next round's you—can you handle it?"

Sheldon snorts. "Penny, _please_," he counters, and the door to the shed opens. Sheldon's gun is already raised and Penny fires her first shot of the day as a warning. It's only Bernadette though. "Status report, Dr. Rostenkowski."

"3 down, 1 to go," Bernadette replies cheerfully. "I can't find _Amy_."

"Really," Penny says, slightly surprised.

Bernadette pulls her mask off, and takes the napkin Penny's got shoved in her pockets so she can wipe her forehead. "I keep catching her as she's ducking down, I can't get a clear shot."

The door opens again. The trio looks up, face-to-face with several bursts of enemy orange. Bernadette gives an oof and a groan, Sheldon looks furious, and Penny's mouth won't stay closed.

Amy beams at them. "Does this indicate I have won?" She looks around. "What a marvelous hide-away!"

Penny and Bernadette simply stare. Sheldon looks like he could spit _nails_.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next round has Howard and Leonard arguing over who gets Amy until Raj drags Howard off, looking at him pointedly and irritably—it's mostly because Amy was looking at him again like a specimen, and he's kind of tired of Amy treating him like a test subject.

Leonard looks at Sheldon, who's pouting because he'd lost the first round. "Who the hell was _sniping_?" he demands.

Sheldon's mouth tips upward the barest hint as he pulls his visor down. "Who can say?" He takes off with Bernadette and Penny.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Leonard's not sure who the frak can be such a damn good shot with a frakkin' paintball gun, but he's desperate to get them. Amy is back on his team for the second round (she's the only reason they _won_ the first, even if it was sheer dumb luck), and they're in the shed for hiding because they're pretty sure it's the only place safe. He'd heard Raj swearing as they got in, and they haven't seen him yet—but he's certain Raj is out.

"Aren't we supposed to be out _there_?" Amy asks, looking a little bored and restless.

"Let Howard get picked up. Less of us means harder to find."

"Not if there are three out there looking for two." Amy sighs. "It's not quite the day of chaotic merriment and frivolity if all we're going to do is hide in a shed."

The door opens. Amy remembers quickly that this was how she'd won the first round, and immediately shoots off a burst.

"_Amy_!" Howard squawks.

Leonard doesn't resist the urge, and fire a quick one at Amy's chest plate. He misses the outright hurt on her face as he leaves the building and promptly seeks cover, narrowly missing a paintball from the right. He glares up—he sees blonde hair, but it's definitely not Penny—it's Bernadette. She jumps down from her perch and takes off running.

Leonard grunts, gets to his feet, immediately starts emptying his ammo canister in her direction. He beams triumphantly when she stops. Her head droops and she holds up her hands in surrender. The grin disappears when he feels 2 nudges to his back that feel an awful lot like gun barrels.

He turns reluctantly, but not before he sees Bernadette drop her arms and run back towards them.

Penny doesn't shoot him, but neither does Bernadette (who had been faking getting hit).

"Why are you waiting?" Leonard asks, and there's a hint of misery in his tone.

Bernadette lifts her visor, the barest hint of a grin on her features. "Who can say?" she asks blandly.

Leonard wants to yell, and a blue paintball hits him in the chest as he's wondering why Bernadette would say the same thing as Sheldon, who is nowhere to be found.

Either way, it's round two—they're one and one with enough ammo for one more go of it. Leonard takes a deep breath, tries to get his head into the game. Luck or no, he, Howard, and Raj can take Sheldon and Bernadette on, no problem. He's reasonably sure that it's Penny they'll have to worry about.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Matters aren't helped when Amy defects to the other side for the third round, leaving the three guys on their own. She'd stiffly remarked that traitors during the revolutionary war were regularly hung, drawn, and quartered, and had given Leonard a meaningful look.

Leonard sighs; some people are getting _way_ into this today, and it's—unusual to say the least. He opens the door to the shed cautiously; the day's gone on long enough that kids who normally sleep in on Sundays are finally arriving, and the arena's getting a little more crowded. Alone in the shed when he realizes Amy's not waiting in there, he does a quick calculation of how much force a paintball strikes a human being.

He's seriously considering the head shot.

It'll more than likely get him kicked out of the arena though, and even though today's not their usual departmental paintball match, he knows that it's coming up in a week or so, and he doesn't fancy getting left out of something else.

Leonard sighs, wipes some of the dirt from his face as he gets back up. He stands on the bench to peer outside. Raj's just run by, with Howard trailing behind. They're coming toward the shed carefully.

Raj is just opening the door when a flash of blonde hair runs by too fast to discern _which_ blonde it is; judging by the ruthlessness with which she takes out Howard, it's probably Bernadette. This is confirmed when she comes closer as Raj escapes back into the woods, and Leonard can make out the height difference a little better.

Leonard pulls his gun up, takes aim. She doesn't see him, and she's pulled her visor up to take a look around. He takes the shot. She glances up at the sound; he misses. Leonard swears, though he kind of wants to see Bernadette's accuracy in action—it's damn impossible to actually _be_ accurate with these things, not without a souped up rifle—and he remembers that Sheldon's the only one who's got one.

She's already seen him, Leonard fires for all he's worth. He finally gets her before she can aim at him, and as she's running away. He grimaces when one catches her on the unprotected arm, and she immediately hits a knee.

He gets down to go see if she's okay, and then remembers how she'd held her hands up in surrender earlier to lure him out for Penny. He's cautious when he comes out, peering around and listening for footfalls. It's Sheldon he sees first, too close for him to miss, and he fires off into Sheldon's chest.

He looks surprised more than anything, behind the protective shielding of his visor.

Penny's still nowhere to be found. Sheldon's knelt beside of Bernadette since they're definitely both out. Leonard takes off into the woods—he'd normally see if Bernadette was okay, honestly—but the game is still on, and Sheldon appears to have it in hand.

The third round lasts the longest, possibly, with Howard (his protective gear _covered_ in orange paint) trudges past him and tells him he and Raj will meet him outside—Sheldon and Bernadette (his voice is stressed here) are out already because someone's hit Bernadette in the arm with a paintball. While the guys and Penny have taken various paintball hits to skin without protection, Bernadette's pretty sore.

Which just leaves himself, Amy, and Penny.

Penny glares from behind a tree.

"I could possibly lure him out for you," Amy says gleefully.

"Why are you so pissed at him?" Penny asks, giving Amy a confused look even as she glances around for Leonard.

Amy looks slightly miffed. "I accidentally mistook Raj for Bernadette, who was wearing your visor, and when Howard entered the shed unannounced, I was uncertain as to whether he was friend or foe—I took the shot."

Penny shrugs—she's done the shoot first, ask later routine. It's gotten Leonard shot more times than she can remember. And it's not like she and Sheldon have never engaged in friendly fire—it's why they're doing _rounds_ of paintball instead of one big game. Not to mention it _is_ supposed to be a game.

"I believe in all likelihood, he will be in a ditch in an attempt to mimic Bernadette's accuracy of shot," Amy offers up. She sees the gleam of anger in Penny's face, and kind of wishes she'd been on their team to begin with. It would have given her the opportunity to see them interact.

Perhaps later, because Penny's gesturing for her to follow.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Amy does find Leonard in a ditch, but before she can so much as get the gun aimed, he's already hit her chest plate and gets up.

"Excellent idea, bestie!" is what he hears before Penny jumps down from a damn _tree_ and fires a single burst of three pellets into his chest.

"Game, set, match." Penny hoists her gun over her shoulder. She glares at him. "It's a frakkin' game, Leonard." She turns and walks off.

Leonard looks confused at best, and he stares at his paint-covered chest plate miserably. It's when a few bursts of orange align with the blue that he shakes his head irritably at Amy. "What was that for?"

Amy shrugs. "The shed." She runs off after Penny.

Leonard groans, catches up to them. "Good game," he finally says to Penny for lack of any other conversation.

Penny stares at him evenly. "Who could say?"

He kicks the wall on his way out.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX


	14. The Bathroom Triangulation

Author's Notes: Such huge thank-yous to my beta, Sam. She has helped immensely to make this story everything I want it to be.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette looks at the wildly raspberry-colored bruise on the back of her arm. Both small and circular, some of the paint has seeped through her long-sleeved shirt, turning it a little orange as well. She sits on the closed toilet of the guys' bathroom in 4A while Sheldon titters about Leonard's lack of aim.

"We've _had_ this discussion before, ever since Wolowitz nearly lost a testicle," Sheldon goes on, pulling the first aid kit from the linen closet.

"It's the risk you take with paintballing; I tried telling Howie that when he came home with that injury," Bernadette says pointedly, and winces when Sheldon picks up her arm to look at it. She has a cap-sleeved tee that Penny had given her so Sheldon could treat the minor injury.

Penny remains in the living room with the guys and Amy at the moment, quite possibly carrying over Sheldon's safety speech about where it is acceptable to hit people with paintballs (Bernadette is pretty sure that she hears Johnny Knoxville come up at least twice, with a not-veiled-at-all threat that they would re-enact another scene involving fireworks next time if it happens again).

Tugging a stool over with his foot so he won't be forced to bend over quite so far, Sheldon takes a seat and pulls out rubbing alcohol—it's a familiar smell for them both.

"It's not really something you can _treat_, Sheldon—it's just a bruise."

"The swelling can be minimized, as well as the coloring, though I fear the ride home from the arena has already let the vascular breakage do its work," Sheldon mutters, and though his hands are steady, his voice seems a little nervous.

Bernadette ignores the way his narrow fingers are wrapped around her arm to keep it still, winces when he rubs the alcohol over her skin. It makes her skin feel cool as it evaporates, but his fingers are warm and dry. The rubbing slows down a little on her arm; she hears Sheldon breathing—it is shallower than normal.

She wants to ask him what he thinks about what Penny did last night, but she's certain she won't get a real answer—or at the very worst, he'll take feelings out of it all together and literally tell her what he thinks. The simple solution she knows is to just ask him to tell her what he feels—but the words won't force themselves out.

They lapse into silence, and the only sound is Sheldon breaking an ice pack. Her mind helpfully supplies that the coldness of the pack is caused when the water comes into contact with solid ammonium nitrate. She's still terrible with thermodynamics, but she remembers that much—calcium chloride was always hot, ammonium nitrate was always cold. Endothermic versus exothermic, but she always gets the system mixed up with the environment.

Bernadette jumps when the cloth-covered packet comes into contact with her arm. It makes his body heat all the more noticeable to her, and she stiffens a little where she sits. His fingers are still steady; his breathing hitches the smallest bit in the back of this throat.

"Does it feel better?" he asks.

Bernadette isn't sure she can respond right away, so she nods. The hand wrapped around her arm to keep it still this whole time comes up and sweeps her hair off of her neck—it had been in a ponytail earlier, which had come down once in the car. His fingers ghost across her neck lightly enough that she isn't sure she felt it.

She asks herself what would Penny do in this situation—she kind of wants to know (okay, wants to know _a lot_) who's better at kissing—Sheldon or Penny. She can't imagine Sheldon would be much good at it at all, given his prior avoidance of romantic relationships. She turns her head slightly though, as if trying to look at the back of her arm (which she knows is impossible from this angle).

He starts to say so, but catches her eyes instead. They remind him of the Texas sky a little—too blue to compare it to anything else—her eyes have a ring of teal around the pupils. His free hand has landed on her shoulder, and tightens there. He feels the tension rocking upwards by the smallest increments; it's enough to make him want to run to the safety of his bedroom where he can go insane in peace.

The hand on her shoulder ends up twisting some of her hair between his fingers, because he has seen Penny do it enough in the past few weeks that he wonders what makes her repeat the action. He doesn't understand why it is oddly satisfying to do so, and there isn't time to analyze it, because Bernadette's leaned forward a little, so close that he can feel her breath on his lips.

Sheldon jerks, a muscle near his eye tics, and without meaning to, his hand grips the cold pack harder, which in turn, presses against the tender bruise. She grimaces in pain, her head dropping.

The apologies die on his lips though—the dreams that plagued him the night before, the blue of her eyes, her skin beneath his hand, and her hair between his fingers. He can't speak right now and is unsure if he really wants to either. Instead, Bernadette closes the distance between them, fitting her lips gently over his.

It isn't anything like Penny's mouth—it's smaller for one, softer too. Not as aggressive. His eyes are still open though, and he tilts his head slightly in thought, presses more firmly against Bernadette's mouth. She turns on the seat, because the angle is awkward, and brings her hands up to touch his face.

There's a stressed, choking sound—he doesn't realize it's him until Bernadette takes her hands away. He drops the cold pack, brings her fingers back. Her hands are smaller than Penny's too—but he's still finding that the same, spiraling pleasure that had threaded its way through him when Penny kissed him is currently wreaking havoc on his system now.

Bernadette jerks back unexpectedly; he follows a bit sluggishly. She looks surprised, lets him kiss her again, and this time, one of his hands threads into her hair. She's about to try to swipe his lip with her tongue when a knock comes on the door, breaking the near-silence in the room like a gunshot.

Sheldon kneels over awkwardly and picks up the cold pack as Penny enters the bathroom, and shuts the door behind her. "How are we doing?" Penny asks pleasantly enough.

Bernadette looks at her smile, and offers one back of her own. "Pretty good."

Sheldon's face is suspiciously red, and he busies himself with checking the bruises out a couple more times before putting the kit away with stilted movements.

Penny makes a round "o" of realization with her mouth. She grins, despite herself, and runs a hand over Bernadette's hair. They all need showers, but she's seen worse. She lays a quick kiss across Bernadette's forehead, and patiently waits for Sheldon to turn from the cabinet.

Bernadette watches curiously—there seems to be a plan involved again, and she gets to her feet to watch more closely. Sheldon shuts the drawer of the cabinet beside of the shower, and turns around to find himself face to face with both of them. He looks a little scolded, as if he's in trouble.

Sheldon is reasonably certain he is in a _kind_ of trouble, but is completely unaware of what sort. He wants to think about it more, wants to weigh the data he has just received from Bernadette and contrast it to what he knows about Penny—Penny is having none of it though; she has all but pinned him against the bathroom door and angled her mouth to his. She gives none of the quarter that Bernadette had, her tongue is swiping at his bottom lip and her teeth are just grazing the top one.

Sheldon tries to breathe—he can't. The way Penny's slid her body against his is making his knees shake. When she pulls away, he finally gives a relieved sound of expelled air, and collapses against the door. He wonders what has stopped Penny's assault though, and when he _is_ finally able to focus and open his eyes, he realizes it is because Bernadette has tugged Penny away from him. He feels oddly bereft, but curiously intrigued.

His hands twitch a bit when Bernadette leans into Penny, their mouths playing and learning; he wants to touch and feel—he doesn't even know _where_, but he feels like if he doesn't, he's going to explode. Penny is demanding as she holds Bernadette's head to her own, hands roughly dragging and fisting. Sheldon is almost sure they've forgotten that he's there, until Penny's eyes open to lock with his. Her lips curve just enough for him to see that she's smirking at him.

Sheldon closes the distance in one stride, and yanks them apart. His breathing is heavy and he looks twitchier than either girl has ever seen him. "The others will wonder what is taking place in here, and I do not envy having to be forced to listen to whatever diatribes they can come up with if they were to know," he says stiffly, though he really doesn't care at _all_ what any of the other scientists could have to say—he feels like he's going to burn up on the spot entirely, collapse under the weight of his own arousal like a star collapses under its own gravity.

This time, however, Bernadette is the one who isn't letting him run. Penny jerks back in surprise when the sound of Bernadette kicking the stool back towards her makes a shot in the room (seriously—Sheldon's nearly a foot taller than her). Penny can only watch as Bernadette gets up without a whit of self-consciousness, and kisses him sharply on the mouth.

He still tastes Penny on her lips; his hands are jerky, as if he doesn't know what to do with them. Penny's hands cover his own, and gently bring them towards Bernadette's waist. He can smell vanilla where Penny runs her mouth across Bernadette's neck. He leaves the microbiologist's mouth briefly to swipe against Penny's lips, feels Bernadette wrapping her arms around his neck, feels Penny's hands running smoothly between them. His body temperature had skyrocketed, his heart is going to burst from his chest, he _knows_—

Another knock on the door scares the daylights out of them all.

They all freeze immediately, staring guiltily towards the exit.

"Everything okay? Bernie, your arm's not that bad off, is it?" Howard asks.

"No, it's fine," Bernadette replies, and her vocal pitch is impossibly high. She nearly chokes when Penny grazes her fingers over the skin between her top and her too-big cargo pants. "We're just putting the first aid kit away now." She glares pointedly at Penny, who goes and opens the cabinet drawer reluctantly before shutting it again.

Had they really been in there that long? Contradictorily, it seemed like they had been in there forever and no time at all.

"We're gearing up some Halo in here—do you and Penny want to play?"

Penny grunts—the pause in their activities is giving Sheldon time to think, and he looks absolutely _terrified_. She isn't denying the pulse of fear running hot through her system, possibly because she's beginning to realize that if they'd been in here any longer, it may not have mattered that the boys were in the next room.

Sheldon moves away first, starts making stilted motions around the bathroom, as if to clean up. He pulls at his belt awkwardly, trying to adjust the throbbing pain of his arousal without being noticed.

It finally hits Penny head-on what they're doing; Bernadette already looks more anxious than ever, and the three almost run directly into each other trying to exit the bathroom.

"I'm actually kind of tired and sore, Howie," Bernadette says, and she tries to lay on the sincerity and apology as thickly as she can. "I think I'm just going to head home for a bath." She hopes they don't look as rumpled as she thinks they do, but one look at Sheldon's flushed face and Penny's bruised lips makes Bernadette smooth her shirt down nervously.

Howard only seems to be watching her though, and he frowns a bit, because not only had he expected to be invited back to her place, but he seems to notice that none of them look all that much together.

"Did it take long, putting some rubbing alcohol on it?" Howard asks, and his tone is unhappy.

Bernadette shrugs, but she's not going to let Howard corner her into spending time with him. "Oh, you know how Sheldon feels about touching people. He was quite the gentleman about it, until Penny started making jokes about how it's the most he's ever touched someone since he was 5 and his meemaw was changing him."

Howard snorts at this, and lets it go.

Bernadette wishes she hadn't said it, because Sheldon is clearly hurt by the joke, and Penny doesn't look any better, but at the very least, it's gotten Howard's attention elsewhere.

"Excuse me; I must change," Sheldon says stiffly, and hopes it doesn't look like he's running to his room when he goes.

Except it does.

"How about you, Penny?" Howard asks, because he knows Leonard wants to ask her to stay, but won't. "Good one, by the way; I knew you had it in you."

"I'm with Bernadette on this one," Penny says, and there's no truth in her tone at all. She picks up her bag, but not before Sheldon's cracked open his door the smallest bit.

Bernadette notices too, and raises an eyebrow. Howard's already started back down the hallway. He's definitely not oblivious, but he is obviously a little disappointed that both girls turned down the offer for Halo.

Penny stares at Bernadette and gestures her down the hallway as the sounds of Halo gear up. "That was a little much, especially for you," she says disappointingly, and tries to keep her voice low.

"What else was I supposed to say?" Bernadette shoots back, and stares cautiously around the corner of the hall. "What would _you_ have done?"

"Told him the truth; it's none of his business," Penny replies firmly. "You know how Sheldon feels about his meemaw."

Bernadette looks like she wants to curl up and die, because she _really_ hadn't meant it. "It was all I could do on the spot—you _know_ I'm a terrible liar, and you weren't exactly coming up with reinforcements."

Penny sighs, and notices Sheldon standing just at the threshold of his bedroom. "Sheldon, you know that—"

"I'm well aware that the situation called for misdirection," he replies, but looks unhappy and a little hurt.

Bernadette is the next one to sigh again—it seems like everyone has done that a lot in the past few minutes. She approaches Sheldon carefully, because she has the feeling that he might slam the door in her face if she comes at this the wrong way.

"I'm sorry," she says, and her voice is solid. "But I really thought it was the lesser of two evils, because you know I'd never mean something like that, nor would Penny ever say anything like that. Howard's easily distracted by cruel insults."

Sheldon nods curtly. "Your apology is logical and accepted. In the future, however, I would appreciate my grandmother being left out of the conversation."

"Noted," Bernadette says, because she doesn't think there's anything else _to_ be said, and Sheldon's nothing if not a fan of logic. Instead, she kisses his shoulder gently, (being there's no stepstool in the hall) and feels relieved when he doesn't pull away or jerk back—it's more than the "apology accepted" line she had gotten, and she believes it more too.

Sheldon switches his gaze to the other girl. "Penny," he says. "There is one other thing I require your answer on."

Penny lifts her lips up in a wry grin. "What's that?"

"Why did you require the Ka'a cards? How did you know they would sort that way?"

Penny shrugs. "You're not the only one with a good memory—"

"Honestly, it's _eidetic_; not just _good_."

"Leonard always sorts his cards when he's done playing; he does it the same way every time." She smirks at him a bit. "Later, Shelly." With more confidence than she feels, she hugs Bernadette, winks at Sheldon, and exits the apartment.

Bernadette still stares at Sheldon; the burden is heavy on her face. "What are we even doing?" Her voice is smaller than usual.

Sheldon looks like he wants to answer, but doesn't quite have a response ready—or, if he does, he doesn't want to say it.

He finally just sighs, looks at her—the full weight of his arousal is plain to see in his tight shoulders and frowning face.

"Honestly, Dr. Rostenkowski. You'd think a scientist could be more specific." He shuts the door.

Bernadette sighs—she tells everyone good bye, but still stops at Penny's apartment next. She knocks on the door hesitantly.

Penny looks at her a bit curiously. "Yes, Bernadette?"

"I'm sorry I used you as an excuse. I really didn't know what else to say."

Penny sighs, because Bernadette looks dejected and like she hates herself. She wraps the smaller girl in a hug and kisses her hair. "It's okay. I probably would've done the same thing."

It takes a few minutes (during which Penny is actually a little frightened that maybe she was too harsh on Bernadette) before Bernadette hugs her back and puts the tiniest of kisses to Penny's collarbone. The shorter girl waves and starts her way down the stairs.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Come on, Bernie…she _misses_ you!"

Howard's tone makes her ears ring. "I really doubt your mother misses me so much that I have to come to Olive Garden again tonight."

"Why break tradition? You know there's always a chance Raj and I will twist her the wrong way on the way into the minivan."

Bernadette sighs, and rubs the bridge of her nose as she adjusts the phone on her ear. She had barely gotten into the front door when the phone had rung—she knows that he has cameras _somewhere_ in here. She needs to ask Sheldon about a signal jammer, because if she _is_ going to keep doing this thing with him and Penny, she really doesn't want Howard to find out _that_ way.

She hasn't made plans yet, but she was least kind of hoping that she would have had the chance. She starts sorting through her personal e-mail account, and is slightly surprised when she sees something from Sheldon. The subject title indicates he actually _graded_ her initial observations of his notes, as well as the report she turned in.

Howard's still talking.

"Howie," she says, interrupting what she is pretty sure is an excuse to cover up the fact he hasn't told his mother yet, "Maybe next week, okay? I'm not really…ready to play happy couple for your mom."

"She's only going to be around for a few more years, come on, Bernie."

She isn't getting pushed into this, not this time. "Next week, maybe. Goodbye." She hangs up the phone and ignores it when it promptly notifies her she has a new text message. She instead peruses the document Sheldon's sent her, skimming until she gets to the final grade:

_A for decent research, though specifics could have been used more copiously. Ambiguous at best, conclusion lacks elucidation. Handwriting needs work if it is to be read clearly. Owing to the previous comments, overall grade is B-._

She smirks at that, and sits back in her chair a little. Like his handwriting is anything to applaud—though she has to admit, hers gets loopy at best when she writes too fast. His handwriting is blocky, and in all caps, as if everything he says needs the extra emphasis. She wonders idly what Penny's handwriting looks like, since she has only seen it a handful of times (things like the grocery list on her fridge, a reminder list on her countertop). From what she's seen, it's downright illegible and uses an easy shorthand method of dropping most (if not all) the vowels.

Bernadette remembers being a little surprised at the shorthand usage in Penny's lists—it indicates that at one point, she had been a decent note-taker. She logs out of her e-mail, deciding to reply to Sheldon's "grading" later. Her couch is as good a place as any to flop down, and she kind of wants to smack herself a bit when she realizes she's smiling like an idiot.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny's just finished mixing in the cheese, milk, and butter for mac'n'cheese when her phone rings. It isn't a number she recognizes, and she frowns—she hasn't had any recent auditions; at least, not recently enough that she thinks it's a callback.

She answers it anyway. "Heyo, Penny speaking."

"Same Penny from the pilot, _Lab Rats_."

"That's me," she says reluctantly, and wonders if the other shoe is about to fall. Smack-talking producers and assaulting the producer's son isn't her favorite way of getting known in the acting business.

"Good. This is Jack Rider, the producer who blows more than his son."

Penny swallows—not the conversation she'd hoped to be having with an unknown number. "Your writers suck," she finally says bluntly. He clearly knows her opinion, she might as well go for broke.

"So does your resume," the deep male voice retorts, and Penny thinks she catches a hint of amusement.

"Not as much as your son." There isn't amusement in her tone at all; she's going for outright insulting.

There's a long pause of silence, and suddenly, there's a gruff, booming laugh. "Alright then. Down to business," Jack says when he's done laughing—by god, Alex had been right about the blond girl who had thrown a script and cussed out the director. She seemed like a complete spitfire (and honestly, anyone who rips Alex a new one deserves a chance in his book).

"Pardon me?" Penny asks, and she's genuinely confused, because she had pretty much bluntly told a producer that he and his kid were both walking offers for a blowjob.

"Here's the rundown, girly." His voice is starting to remind her of her father a little. "I've got four shows waiting to be greenlit for production. I don't need any actors for them—I need an assistant to do the research for decent writers. It's not all fun and games, you'll have other things to do too."

"Are you offering me a job?"

"No need to be tame now, sweets. You want the job or not? It's not acting, but it'll get your foot in the door—and by the looks of your resume, you need it."

Penny grits her teeth—she wants to tell him to shove her resume in his ear. Still, if Sheldon has taught her nothing, he _has_ taught her to get the fine print upfront.

Thus starts the weirdest twenty-minute conversation of her life. Logistics get worked out (as does her pay rate), and by the end, he's telling her that it's only a trial run, so she might not want to quit whatever waitressing job she's working till she gets that "Big break" she's been hoping for since she moved here. She'll do until he finds someone better (Penny is certain that the man got that line from _Starship Troopers_).

Penny falls back on the couch. He gave her all of three days to adjust her current work schedule. She stares blankly at the phone for a minute, wondering if the conversation had _really_ taken place or not. She's still wondering when she gets to bed that night.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette knocks on Penny's door the next afternoon, her backpack hanging loosely from her shoulders. She waits a bit, and is a little surprised when no one answers the door. She frowns, knocks again.

"I'm given to understand that if one doesn't answer their door, they are either not home or they don't wish to talk to you," Sheldon comments from his own doorway.

Bernadette whirls; he's sneaky sometimes. "Where is she?"

Sheldon shrugs. "I'm not her keeper. She left about an hour ago." He walks back into his own apartment. "You're welcome to wait here until she returns."

"Too late!" Penny sing-songs as she comes up the stairs—she's carrying a few grocery bags, and looks brilliantly happy.

Sheldon raises an eyebrow at the cheer he can practically feel from ten feet away.

Bernadette smiles back at her—it's a bit nervous, because she isn't sure if they're like…dating now, or just—whatever it is that three people do together, so she isn't sure if she's supposed to kiss her hello, or even if she was supposed to kiss Sheldon hello—she has _really_ got to do some research on this—

Penny takes care of it for her, and lays an absently excited peck to both Bernadette and Sheldon's cheeks. "Big news!" Penny practically squeals. "Let me put my groceries away, and I'll tell you both all about it!" She flounces back into her apartment.

Sheldon looks like someone has frozen him in carbonite where he stands. Bernadette pokes him; this seems to do the trick of getting him back to the land of the conscious.

"You ever get the feeling we're in over our heads?" Bernadette asks quietly.

Sheldon makes a sound in his throat that sounds like he wants to say yes, but he has never admitted to being unfamiliar with something, so the words won't quite come out. Instead, he practically runs to his computer so fast that Bernadette is sure there should have been a puff of smoke along with his retreat. She doesn't have to ask Sheldon what the physicist is doing—it is more than likely the research she had been thinking of moments ago.

Bernadette blinks, waits a few moments, and then walks into 4A as Sheldon types furiously on his computer. She sits on the couch, listening to the familiar sound of tapping at a laptop keyboard, and Penny's off-key singing.

Bernadette sighs, and leans her head on the back of the couch. She's pretty sure they're _all_ in over their heads—but she gets the impression it's not like being underwater, like she feels with Howard and their relationship.

This is more like she's free-falling through space-time, and staring up at the universe's creation in wonder. Suddenly, being in over her head seems just fine.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X


	15. The Friendship Redefintion

Author's Notes: As always, huge thanks and massive amounts of appreciation for my beta, Sam. She's terribly patient XD She's also helped give this story the clarity it wanted so very badly! Thanks again, m'dear.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon spends the majority of his evening finishing a grant proposal on monopoles. Penny had gone back to her apartment nearly the minute Leonard had walked in, and Bernadette had not been far behind.

Penny's good news was indeed excellent—Sheldon knows that Penny is capable of much more than the Cheesecake Factory (that's partly why he's so hard on her). This new offer she has decided to take only solidifies the knowledge he already had.

By the time Sheldon finishes the proposal, Leonard is in front of the television, half-dozing and half-watching. Sheldon leaves the room; it's a little early for his night-time shower, but he wants the extra time once in bed to think about the latest social shifts within their group. He isn't good at _not_ overthinking—dear lord, his job description (for the lesser intelligent public) might as well say "Overthinking the finer points of the universe and why what was will always be".

Sheldon turns the water on. He collects water in a small cup to adjust the temperature according to his exact preference. Some people call him quirky (Amy often uses it as a friendly endearment, and sometimes Koothrappali), others call him crazy (Leonard, sometimes Wolowitz and Penny), and the last just call him outright difficult (mostly Leonard and Howard).

He never cares much for the opinions of others, especially since his intellect is so superior that their thoughts literally don't matter to him.

It bothers him a bit, because the social experiment with Penny had ended up being as much about Bernadette and himself as it had been about her. He is overly critical of himself for not realizing sooner how variables can affect and react with each other. The conclusion itself said more about their social group than he had been willing to deduce at the time—scientific data, however, lies no better than he does.

Assuming the results drawn were correct, it seems as if at least two members of their collective group are not only superfluous, but actually harmful at times. It isn't only their actions, but their utter lack of respect for consequences and long-term reverberations that those behaviors result in.

Sheldon rinses his hair and reaches for the soap. Koothrappali's issue, by and large, is his absolute constant urge to be a follower, regardless of the effects. He appears to acknowledge those consequences—and simply does what he sees others doing, because going against the grain is simply unacceptable.

Truth be told, Sheldon allowed Raj to work with (_for_,_ drat_) him for that precise reason. It meant Sheldon rarely received any real criticism or second-guessing of his work. It made it easier to accomplish, and Raj occasionally gives a beneficial opinion.

Leonard—his so-called best friend and roommate—the only one to have tolerated him for so long, put up with his quirks (albeit through jokes that were both sullen and desperate at the same time, poor interjections that were often about Sheldon's insanity compared to Leonard's relative normality). The tolerance tended to drop whenever Leonard was single. Sheldon has been told several times that he's cramping Leonard's "style", though Sheldon was reasonably certain that Leonard had about as much "game" as Wolowitz most of the time, having had more opportunity since Penny moved in to see Leonard's "moves" in action.

Sheldon desperately dislikes male slang at times. It seems rather easier to say that Leonard thinks he is charming to the opposite sex, and Sheldon thinks that after this much time spent alternately wasting his time with Penny and then ignoring work further to other relationships, that Leonard's personality can be as abrasive as Howard's.

On the other hand, Leonard's ill-tolerance of the long-term results tended to overshadow the applied physicist's desperate need to present himself as laid-back and carefree. While this lack of foresight probably serves him well in his chosen field—that need for swift results and instant gratification—it does him very little good in nearly every other aspect of his life.

Sheldon is not a fool—contrary to popular belief, he knows and realizes all too much how the well-ordered routines of his life affect others. Most people react with indifference (_"he's just a bag full of tricks!" _Amy would say)—others react by thinking themselves more normal by comparison (_"oh, just my roommate—remember this moment when you think I'm a weird one,"_ Leonard would say).

Others tolerate it fairly well—understand even (_"Not so much sanitizer, Sheldon—don't want to give MRSA an edge, do we?"_ Bernadette usually tells him, but then she would wash her hands with him in the same efficient, obsessive way—_all_ the way up the mid-forearms).

Some didn't understand it at _all_, and don't bother to try (_"oh, him? He's just batcrap crazy,"_ is Wolowitz's opinion).

Some really _didn't_ understand, but made the effort to adjust and try to acknowledge it on occasion that he _is_ a bit odd ("_I can't sing it anymore, Sheldon; I'm sick too, remember?"_ Penny says when her voice is almost gone from singing Soft Kitty on Valentine's weekend).

Very rarely, as in the current moment of thought, Sheldon wishes he couldn't remember things as well as he does.

It occurs to Sheldon that perhaps he has been trying to push a paradigm with Amy that was better suited to others. Perhaps everyone in their circle was attempting to force the continuation of their respective relationships because it was either too convenient or too fated to move forward.

Sheldon is painfully aware of the fact that they all often engage in what might be considered "childish" activities. He frowns, because it suddenly shoots through his mind like a beacon that there are many adults who play video games and paintball—read comic books, go bowling. The new question becomes if the activities themselves aren't necessarily childish, why do they end up seeming that way?

He frowns harder as he exits the shower. He thinks he hears Leonard speaking, but he honestly isn't paying attention, preferring the company of his own mind tonight. Leonard's tonal quality all but screams that he's complaining, but Sheldon isn't listening for it any longer—he has given himself a puzzle to sort out, and he doesn't fancy another night of tossing about in bed.

He decides to use their most recent paintball outing—nearly everyone _not_ on his own team had come back with both orange and blue paint on their armor. Amy had readily admitted that she had pulled a "friendly fire" on both Koothrappali and Wolowitz, but that it was completely accidental. This didn't readily explain the orange on Amy's chest plate.

Sheldon learns later that Leonard had fired a round at her, owing to his frustration at Amy's inexperience—it's hardly an effective teaching method. Instead of only losing _one_ team mate to an accident, they'd lost that _and_ Amy to Leonard's lack of patience, and probably a poorly-thought-through attempt at impressing Penny in some way. Perhaps Leonard thought if he made it longer than anyone else on his team?

Sheldon looks at his bed. It isn't his usual bed time, but he suddenly feels undeniably exhausted. He wants to discuss his thoughts with Bernadette or Penny; he can make simple deductions when it comes to social issues, but broader, deeper implications are just beyond the depth of his understanding of human behavior. He requires more data to make any kind of real conclusion—that might end up requiring a repeat of Sunday's events, however, and it's not something he is in a hurry to replicate. Bernadette still has that bruise, Leonard's taken to catching Penny in the hallways, and both girls indicated Amy's feelings are still quite hurt from Leonard's poor judgment and control.

Perhaps a different activity then—he isn't sure what it will be, because he's positive that the poor behavior arises from a mixture of competitive spirit and attempted male dominance. Then again, Sheldon's absolutely certain that the riotous behavior would dissipate with the girls' absence—

No one to impress.

Sheldon sighs—it brings him to the "thing" he's been avoiding thinking about all together. It's mostly owing to the fact that he knows three things for certain about the situation concerning Penny and Bernadette.

One of those things is that a rather large number of the male population would be asking him _what_, exactly, the problem is—his second but foremost issue is exactly that. He is _not_ one of those typical primates, and the very _last_ thing he wants is to end up objectifying Penny and Bernadette as a stereotypical fantasy—he appreciates both women not only for their aesthetic appeal, but, more importantly, who they are as people. He doesn't want to lose himself the way most men might—he's not most men after all, and thinks himself far more capable of understanding the idea that he _is_, in fact, attracted to both women, and not just because they're both beautiful in their own rights. He has never been much for stereotypes either, so he is quite certain that it isn't just because they're both women as well.

The third of his constants is that he _knows_ that what is being suggested to him (that he involve himself romantically with the two) is _not_ socially accepted by a vast majority of the population. This particular constant isn't quite as bothersome as the previous—it only brings him back to the fact that he genuinely doesn't value the opinions of the herd.

He grabs the composition notebook for his observations on this experiment from the locked drawer of his nightstand—it won't leave him alone until he writes it down.

_"Those who matter don't mind, those who mind don't matter."_

His meemaw still says it to him to this day, in every single letter after she signs it. She always had a way of reminding him that no matter how special he was—and make no mistake, he was very unique—that it didn't make him any less _human_; his heart beats the same way as anyone else's.

And right now, Sheldon wonders if his heart is going to break out of his thoracic cavity simply from remembering the incidents that took place in the bathroom.

His cheeks stain a little red then, because he had finally managed to sneak both sets of ladies' underthings into Penny's laundry. She hadn't said anything about it, so he's ascertained that she didn't realize he'd had them (he still needs to see if Bernadette has found his Green Lantern tee).

Sheldon lies flat on his back. "Oh, for the love of all that's sweet and holy," he mutters. Between the bathroom memory and their underwear, his arousal has returned in full force. "_Ridiculous_."

With a groan, he begins to think of the periodic table first, element by element, in order, and lists the name, symbol, atomic weight, and its natural state at standard temperature and pressure.

He gets to copper before he's calmed himself down enough to sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette puts her dishes away after she washes and dries them. She's pretty cheerful after Penny's news (that and she got a good hour with both Sheldon and Penny, where they'd discussed Penny's new job, a research grant Sheldon was attempting to secure for monopole research, and how they had switched Bernadette exclusively to testing retrovirals). She never thought a conversation between the three of them would turn out _quite_ like that, but at the same time, it had been immensely entertaining.

They had even started to discuss dinner, but then Leonard had shown up, and Penny had been out the door like a shot. Leonard himself had looked disappointed at first, and then awkwardly tried to strike up a conversation with Bernadette (most of which had revolved around how Howard misses her very much and Leonard's work with Leslie, who was still reluctant to let him anywhere _near_ the equipment—though Bernadette can't imagine why, other than Leonard's tendency to whine).

It wasn't horrible; it just wasn't terribly interesting either.

Sheldon had pointed it out in clipped tones for her—he'd then told Bernadette maybe he'd let her know how the proposal for his research goes, and essentially all but handed her a way out the door.

She had taken it too, though Penny snagged her on the way to the stairs. She ended up leaving more than ten minutes later, when Penny had stopped kissing her (another five minutes because Bernadette came back).

Bernadette has just gotten her hands dry when there's a knock at the door. She's a bit hesitant to answer it, given she knows Penny's been haggling with Cheesecake employees most of the night to rearrange her schedule and Sheldon (besides not being willing to drive) is finishing the remainder of his grant proposal.

To no great surprise for her, it's Howard. She winces behind the door; he would've already heard her move the step stool.

Bernadette opens the door. "Howie? I'm sort of busy—you usually call first."

Howard shrugs, and produces a small, pink carnation from his sleeve with a smile (she still hates magic; how does he not get that? And it's pink…).

"I'm still thinking," she says honestly, because every time he brings up rekindling their engagement, she can't bring herself to say yes.

He sighs, and gives her a pouting frown as he sets the carnation down on the little table by her door. "Are you ever going to know?"

Bernadette bites her lip. "I don't know." She doesn't like how pushy he is about it lately, but she isn't going to lose her temper with him either—it will help no one.

He looks a little _less_ pouty now. "Are you just stringing me along?"

"Of course not," Bernadette says, giving him a bewildered stare as he paces her living room.

"Well, I'm not sure," Howard bites out, and there's either anger or disappointment in his voice—she doesn't like it either way, and wonders if this might be a preview of the future. "You keep telling me you need more time, but every time I turn around, you're off with the girls or Sheldon or both. I'd understand if you and _I_ were hanging out, because then I'd at least feel like you care enough to work on us."

Bernadette stares at him, and hopes the anger doesn't show in her face. "That's not what I'm doing—when I said I needed time, it's because I needed some to figure out whether you respect me or not, whether we can even function as two married adults or not. Your behavior right now isn't encouraging." She tries to pitch her tone to avoid sounding threatening—hell, who is she kidding; her voice can't hurt a fly, unless she's imitating Howard's mother.

"So what?" Howard's eyes flash. "I'm just supposed to sit back and wait around like a puppy until you figure how whether or not you're a big girl?"

She almost wants to slap him, but it isn't her nature to be physically violent (puppies and children being the obvious exception; _oh_, he called himself a puppy—she wonders if she could get a pass on kicking him at least).

But she really isn't one to physically harm someone, so she takes a deep breath, and counts to ten to calm down before she says or does something she'll regret. She knows he's hurting, but that isn't a reason for him to have become insulting.

"It's not about just you, or just me," she points out, and is proud of her even tone, even though Howard is starting to look a little more manic at her lack of reaction to his anger. "It's about us rethinking a really big decision."

"You were _fine_ with this "really big decision" two months ago. What's changed?" A frantic need is on his face. "What can I do to fix it?"

"You can give me the time I asked for."

"That's not an answer!" His needy voice changes to frustration.

Bernadette sighs—this is exactly what she was trying to talk to him about—his changes in mood are swift. She isn't sure she wants to _marry_ someone who thinks all adults act this way. "It's the only answer I have. I can't marry you if you can't respect me. I can't marry you if you can't appreciate what we have for what it is and not what you'll get out of it."

"What the frak is that even supposed to mean?!"

She sighs once more, and digs in her purse for a minute. "It means if you're demanding an answer _now_," she puts the ring into his palm. "Then the answer is _no_."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny slaps her alarm clock at 6:02 (having listened to it beep for two minutes anyway) and hazily wonders how the _hell_ people even _function_ this early. Her snooze button only grants her a five minute respite. She groans, and hits it again—what she doesn't (or won't) ignore is the text message tone of her phone going off next at 6:23AM. She smiles—Sheldon had said it was the only exact minute he could spare during his own morning routine.

Penny drags herself out of bed and trudges to the shower. It's too early for her to be grinning madly about…well, _whatever_ the hell it is she's doing with Bernadette and Sheldon, so she doesn't mind the soft smile that graces her sleepy features instead.

It's her first day with Rider (_"only my wife calls me Jack, only people I fire call me Mr."_) and she thinks she ought to be more nervous, but she isn't. She turns up her shower radio, singing along (being _this_ early—she's got _no _hope of being in tune).

She grins as she pushes shampoo quickly through her hair. She, Bernadette, and Sheldon need to play Rock Band or Guitar Hero—she would be willing to bet her left boob that Bernadette can _wail_ on drums—Sheldon doesn't let anyone play guitar because it's his controller and he doesn't like germs).

Penny rinses her hair, moves onto the conditioner and snags her razor off the little shelf. The ducks are smiling at her, and she can't help smiling back—she's genuinely happy, happier than she can ever remember being (childhood memories with her dad aside, possibly, but it's a totally different kind of happy—she likes it). She doesn't know what the hell is really going on between the three of them, but she knows she needs to get all the sillies out before she goes to meet Rider at Starbucks—he told her that he's only going to show her his coffee order once (please, she was a barista for a month before she lucked into the Cheesecake Factory).

She's damn near whistling by the time she throws together an outfit (okay, she picked it out last night because she wanted to be sure she exuded her casual energy while still channeling that she's a go-getter), but, ever mindful of the fact that of all the things Sheldon's chosen to put on roommate ads, whistling was a deal-breaker worthy of ad space, she restrains herself.

Penny doesn't hate the early hour too much by her second cup of coffee, and she runs good time between her shower and her usual routine. It never hurts to be early, she figures, so she begins to ready herself to leave, mentally going through her checklist as she does so. The first thing is the printed list of names and phone numbers of writers she's come in and out of contact with since she moved to Pasadena—some are good, some are _really_ good—others are some she had simply promised that if they recommended her name around, she would toss theirs. They were at the bottom, and she has every intention of telling Rider which ones she thinks are worth the hassle.

She is a little surprised when Sheldon is outside of his door as she exits her own apartment. "Morning, Shelly," she chirps, and locks her door securely.

Sheldon seems a bit stiff, even nervous. He looks behind him, cranes his neck as if listening, and then suddenly pulls her forward by the strap of her purse to kiss her a bit clumsily.

"I believe the popular phrase is to break a leg. But don't; broken bones are very painful, and a hardly a good a way to start your day. The phrase actually originates—"

Penny shuts him up by simply kissing him quickly, mindful of the fact his door is open. "Pass that one to Bernadette, if you see her later," she says. "Bye, Sheldon." She flounces down the stairs.

Sheldon stares after her, and rubs his fingers over his mouth. His lips turn up ever so slightly before he wants to hit his head against the door—this time, it's all the way to bromine before he can walk straight, and he's a mite miffed because it was right before krypton.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX

For the first time since starting her job, Bernadette takes a personal day. She debates calling Penny, but she knows that today is Penny's first day with her new boss, and she's pretty sure that producers frown upon people not keeping promises on the first day of work. She even thinks about calling Sheldon, but from what she's heard from Howard and Raj, it's probably the worst idea _ever_ to disturb him at work.

Then again, she wonders now how much of anything Howard's ever said about Sheldon can be believed—and anytime she's heard Raj go on about Sheldon, he's been drunk, so she knows to take that with a grain of salt.

She feels guilty when she calls her boss—the man is actually worried about her, and reminds her that she's one of the best and brightest young minds in her field. He then gives her the usual laundry list of symptoms to be on the lookout for if she starts feeling ill. That's probably her own doing; she didn't specify _why_ she needed the personal day—only that she did.

And it isn't even that she _feels_ ill. She doesn't, really. She's just so tired of dealing with Howard, and she's even more exhausted from trying to figure out how a good little Catholic girl like her got mixed up with two different people at the same time, one of whom is a confirmed atheist with one of those insane, church-sightseeing mothers.

Bernadette buries her face into her pillow. She debates actually moving—she can hardly believe it, but she _is_.

Sheldon's voice sternly points out that leaving will hardly help—she will still feel however she does no matter where she goes. She's heard his vulnerable voice now too—so it hardly helps that he also says in that tiny voice of his that she shouldn't go at all, because _some_ people will be very put out and upset if she does.

Penny's telling her to grow a set—she's done the right thing after all, why should _she_ feel guilty?

Bernadette sniffles a little. She isn't even really…_sad_, if she thinks about it. She's more just relieved and tired that she finally just said what was in her head, and did so without resorting to the meaner things that run through her brain when Howard's being difficult. It's not that she _meant_ to hurt him—god, she'd never meant to hurt him so badly.

But at the same time, the arguments from last night had given her a peek into the future. The more she thinks about it, that more certain she becomes that eventually, she will be Mrs. Wolowitz, and not just because her last name was Howard's as well. And she refuses to end up like that, her son clinging to her because she'd never taught him to let go and be an adult.

Bernadette sighs, and turns her face away from the pillow because she needs to breathe. She's irritated with herself now, because the clock is glaringly telling her that it's 11AM and she would normally elbow-deep in agar and humming to herself by this point in the day. She was supposed to start retrovirals today too—she sighs and thumps her head back into the pillow.

It's also not like her to lie in bed and feel sorry for herself either, so she rolls away and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. She kind of still wants to do exactly what she has been doing since she called her boss this morning, but it's getting her nowhere fast.

Bernadette rubs her hair from her eyes—it needs a good cutting; she's been so wrapped up in everything else that she hasn't been paying attention, and is now shaggier than she's used to. She flicks her fingers through it absently as she turns on the water for a shower. Her phone is blinking with unread messages and missed calls—she's got no desire to see from who just yet. She needs this time to herself for a moment to breathe and collect her thoughts into something resembling the normal order she tries to keep her mind in.

It simply doesn't help that Penny has busted her way out of the assigned compartment of "friends", and Sheldon has somehow managed to sneak out of the one labeled "the crazies". She steps under the water after undressing, and heaves another sigh when she realizes just how much she wanted a shower.

The whole thing is downright weird, but in all of the best ways. It reminds her a little of how she and Howard were at the beginning, comparing their crazy-mother stories and swapping short-people stories as well. In the end, Bernadette wonders if that was all they really had in common—short and overprotective mothers.

She knows what the difference was between Howard's assumption that her height would make her a perfect dormouse and Sheldon telling her that she's small and light, and liable to be as good at paintball as Harry Potter is at seeking. One had poked every single sensitive spot she'd had since high school; the other had made her feel proud and powerful.

She isn't as self-conscious as she used to be about her height—it will always be one of those things, but she's learned to live with it and find good things about it. For Howard, it was almost like her height was a matter of convenience.

For Sheldon and Penny, they both saw it as an advantage, much like Penny's ball-busting skills from farm life, or Sheldon's insanely eidetic memory.

Her skin flushes darkly when she starts thinking about Sheldon and Penny—she wants to blame it on the heat of the water, but it's utterly _not_, and the slap of a ruler across the wrist from the nuns is too fresh in her memory for her to think otherwise. She leans against the tiling of her shower, simply letting the hot water pound on her skin and wash off the depression of her fight with Howard. She straightens; she's an adult now, and while adults feel sad at the end of things, they don't cave into self-pity either.

With that thought, she firmly focuses on her shower, and promises to revisit her thoughts on Sheldon and Penny later—it's difficult, since some of them tend to involve the kissing that took place in the bathroom of 4A, and she is, in fact, in her bathroom now.

Instead, Bernadette starts reciting viruses in her head, starting with naked, moving onto enveloped, and then onto bacteriophages. She's nearly ready to move onto various forms of prion disorders when she finally picks up her phone. The most recent message is from Sheldon, and it makes her smile.

_I'm given to understand that the emoticon, :-*, stands for a kiss. Penny sends one.—Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, BS, MS, MA, PhD, ScD_

She grins.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny doesn't have much time to think about why her text message to Bernadette goes unanswered—Rider has literally been running her the entire day, and it wasn't always for good reasons (she firmly drew the line when he wondered if she'd call his wife. Apparently, his wife had the tendency to get riled up every time a female assistant called her—Penny had honestly stopped listening after that, because he'd commented that his wife's sexy when she's angry).

But the end of the day, she felt like she'd actually done a few things—one of the more important things she had done was look over some scripts that Rider's usual writers had sent him. Penny had bluntly told him that two of them made her want to vomit, one needed too much revision to be salvaged, and only a handful had any real potential.

Other things had not been so fun, like picking up dry cleaning, getting more coffee, walking a dog, and calling assorted casting directors and actual directors to demand current budgets, see if deadlines were being met, and make sure Rider's money was being spent accordingly.

Make no mistake, Penny has known some tough-ass, backwoods rednecks who barely took shit from their own mothers, let alone some sweet-sounding girl over the telephone. She had actually pulled out Junior Rodeo smack-talk today, something she hasn't had to do in quite some time (Kirk, if she thinks about it hard enough).

Penny opens the door to her apartment, shuts it behind her, and flops on the couch. She has never had so much coffee in her whole _life_ as she had pounded back today, and it makes her jittery. She goes for a bottle of water to help flush the excess caffeine from her system, and then fills a pot to boil on the stove.

She's damn near starving—between walking Rider's dog, picking up his dry cleaning, reading scripts, and fetching him more coffee than _anyone_ should be able to healthily withstand, she'd barely had time to eat more than a candy bar around two that afternoon.

When she _does_ finally get a text from Bernadette, it's brief.

_Gave Howie a final answer last night and told him no. Thanks for the kiss._

Penny winces; she knows that conversation couldn't have gone well. At the same time, the kiss remark puts a hint of bemusement into her features, and she wonders what the hell Sheldon did. If she wasn't so damn hungry, she'd go and ask him, but at this point, she's afraid she might go cannibal on someone.

The text from Sheldon lets her know that this Sunday will be laser tag, and she should plan her schedule accordingly. Also, he forwarded her kiss to Bernadette, and in the future, could she please do such things herself, because forwarding an action is awkward and unnecessary at best.

Penny starts laughing so hard, she can barely stop herself from keeling into the floor from it. She has no idea what she's doing—but she's pretty sure she's absolutely _smitten_.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Leonard looks up when he hears the banging going on in the kitchen early on Saturday morning. Even for Sheldon, it is a little ridiculous for the taller man to be _this_ noisy at—Leonard grimaces; it's frickin' 6:30AM. He isn't ever sure why it makes him so curious to see just what the hell is going on, but it makes him trudge out of bed, dragging his glasses off the nightstand as he does so.

Sheldon stands in the kitchen, already dressed, and he has an assorted pile of cans of disinfectant on the counter. Some of them aren't cans, once Leonard gets a closer look—but they're definitely laboratory-grade antiseptics. He could recognize the dark starchy color of iodine _anywhere_ (Sheldon had the tendency to occasionally bathe wounds in it), and the smell of assorted chemicals is unmistakable.

Sheldon's wafting some of them to test the strength of their odor, _oh god_.

Leonard rubs his eyes beneath his glasses. "Want to catch me up?" It comes out grumpier than he intended, and Sheldon doesn't look up—hell, he hardly takes notice, so concentrated he is on apparently looking for something.

"Laser tag tomorrow," Sheldon says absently before pulling two of the cans and one of the bottles off to the side. "I am trying to discern which disinfectant would work best for sanitizing the equipment."

"When did this go down?" Leonard asks, because now he's really confused; this Sunday was supposed to be Raj and Howard's trip to the organic market, during which Leonard and Sheldon normally catch up on weekend work pertaining to miscellaneous papers, write-ups, conclusions, and lab reports. It's hardly a secret that Sheldon's smart enough to normally have it done by now anyway—the part of Leonard that's been there since middle school rebelliously leaves it until he _has_ to do it.

Sheldon's still not really paying attention; it's kind of driving Leonard a little crazy. "Bernadette, Penny and I are attending. I assumed with your predilection for taking out fellow team members, it would be a poor idea to have you in a situation where it will be just as obvious as paintball that you had fired upon someone."

Leonard frowns. "She'd shot Raj _and_ Howard."

"It was an accident," Sheldon points out, and finally looks up. "You don't like laser tag—you say the lights give you a cranial ache. I also rather thought that you were still on tense terms with Penny. As Wolowitz and Bernadette have officially terminated their own relationship, I did not believe it to be wise to invite Wolowitz either." He looks at a can, scanning the ingredients and concentrations before discarding it beneath the sink. "Since Koothrappali has the abominable habit of following Wolowitz in all things,"—he can't help it; he looks at Leonard pointedly, but Leonard seems to have missed the meaning—"I didn't believe it wise to extend the invite to him either. Not to mention it's difficult to play any sort of strategy with someone who cannot or refuses to speak in front of women."

However long-winded, every single point sort of makes Leonard grind his teeth. "Why go at all? Your _friends_ won't be there," he points out. "And it's not that I don't _like_ laser tag, it's just…" He trails off, because the strobe lights _do_ give him a wicked headache—the one he'd gotten from a couple of Sundays ago is still fresh in his memory.

Sheldon looks at him warily. "Perhaps consider making other arrangements with Koothrappali and Wolowitz since they will not be attending either?"

"Why go at all with Penny and Bernadette? You don't think it looks weird?" Leonard frowns at the slight stain that colors Sheldon's face.

"Why should it be considered strange at all? Amy would be coming too, if she weren't visiting family." Sheldon discards another can and bottle, now down to a set of five cans and three bottles. "It's just laser tag, Leonard—honestly, the way you're talking, one would think an unforgiveable sin is being committed."

"You shouldn't exclude your _friends_, Sheldon. It's rude," Leonard decides instead, because he thinks Sheldon doesn't see the social blight he's going to cause.

Sheldon tilts his head—Leonard thinks he might be feigning curiosity, but unless mocking is involved, he isn't sure that Sheldon's capable. "The exclusion of one's friends is considered rude?" he asks, and his gaze is suddenly flatter than Leonard can ever remember it being.

Leonard swallows—he isn't sure where Sheldon's going with this, and watches as Sheldon finally selects two cans and two bottles, marking them with labels quickly, "Laser Tag". "It's rude," Leonard agrees. "It's like you're telling me you don't want to hang out with me, and you'd rather hang out with Bernadette and Penny, which is just kind of weird anyway."

Sheldon takes a deep breath, and a _look_ that flashes across his face, quick as lightning, and Leonard isn't entirely sure he really saw it. Sometimes, Leonard isn't any better at reading social cues than Sheldon, but he's pretty sure his stomach just twitched at whatever it was.

"Perhaps I don't wish to hang out with my _friends_." Sheldon stresses the word oddly, and Leonard starts to wonder just what the holy _hell_ is going on. "Perhaps the term _friends_ needs a bit of redefining." He scoops up the four containers of disinfectants and sterilizers. "I would suggest you make alternative plans with Koothrappali and Wolowitz—I believe it would benefit you." He leaves the room.

Leonard squints his eyes. He knows he just missed something terribly important, but he isn't entirely sure what. It makes his teeth grind, and he ends up with a headache anyway.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's exactly 11AM when Penny hears the knocking. Definitely Sheldon. She has actually been up for a while anyway though; Rider's given her things to take home and work on. It almost feels like Rider's _testing_ her for something, but she isn't completely sure what—hell, the last script she'd handed back to him literally looked like she had tried to cut a wrist over it with all of the editing notes she's made (including the note that said if it looked like she's bled over it, it's because it made her want to die, scrawled across the front page). English and literature were always her easiest classes—there was room for interpretation on a great many things, and hell—her Brit-lit professor still e-mails her from time to time with reading recommendations, along with heavy hints that there's several colleges in the area whose admission processes aren't quite as rigorous as most of the universities.

She ignores them, most of the time, but she's already dug through some of her old things just to find her thesaurus and _Elements of Style_ book that had been required text for said classes. There are miscellaneous folders of different headshots sitting beneath those, all for several of the pilots that Ridser wants to cast for soon, and he wants her to trash out the _definite_ no-gos before handing them over to his casters.

Penny opens the door after allowing Sheldon to finish his triple-knock—it was more Bernadette's and his joke anyway, but whatever she was going to say dies in her throat. He looks angry—it isn't an emotion she sees on Sheldon's face normally, but he genuinely looks a combination of angry, disappointed, and straight-out _hurt_.

The reason she isn't terribly familiar with it is because the only other time she has seen it is way back when the boys came from the Arctic. And the Arctic, (much like the night the heat went out) is something that is religiously never spoken of, talked about, or approached in any given context.

"What's wrong, Shelly?"

"Don't_ call _me that."

His voice is the same as his face, and Penny frowns. She puts the kettle of water on to boil. "Do you want me to call Bernadette?" she finally asks lightly. "Maybe we can all grab lunch at Souplantation."

"It's sub-sandwich day."

"Then we'll grab subs," she says easily. "Firehouse is one of your acceptable establishments?"

Sheldon tilts his head at her; the anger is still there. "Your terminology is impressive."

Penny shrugs. "I've been reading crappy science-fiction scripts all day, had to look up a lot of words."

Sheldon nods stiffly. His entire frame suddenly drops, and it's damn near as if he collapses onto the sofa. Penny's already texting Bernadette, because she's not always sure she's good at pulling Sheldon out of his own head sometimes.

"What's wrong?" Penny asks again, and sits beside of him.

Sheldon looks at her without lifting his head from the back of the couch. "Dr. Siebert informed me that my grant proposal had been rejected. I've lost funding for monopole research."

Penny frowns—she is never really quite certain of what the hell a monopole even _is_, but she does understand that "rejected grant proposal" means "less money", which for Sheldon, means failure. "But…you're…" She hesitates to stroke his ego, especially when his mood seems as self-defeating as it now. "Aren't you…brilliant in your field?"

Sheldon's eyes look flat, and his voice is even worse. Her phone titters; probably Bernadette either saying she will either be right over, or she can't.

"They've rejected my monopole research funding on the grounds that my earlier experiment produced not only _no_ results, but flawed ones that could barely be published, even with the original data."

Penny's throat tightens a little—again, she's not terribly sure about the jargon, but she's pretty sure that he said whatever the boys did in the Arctic just caused him to lose something quite important to him. She grabs her phone, sees that Bernadette _is_ on her way—good.

Penny doesn't touch him right away; he looks like he wants to go home to Texas all over again. "But don't they realize that it was a crappy situation? Everyone deserves a second chance."

Sheldon snorts. The sound isn't his usual derisive condescension. It's bitter and cynical, self-hating and defeated. "Scientific money is not prone to understand—as you put it—"crappy situations"—nor is it likely to give second chances to someone, no matter their brilliance, who clearly is not able to select their research team with proper discretion to prevent wasted funding and time."

Penny sighs. She doesn't know that there's anything more she can say. So she wraps her arms around his shoulders—he tenses and pushes back against her almost immediately. She keeps her arms tight though, and struggles to remember any of the other times she's had to yank him out of a self-hating cycle of stupidity.

She knows how he'll react to Soft Kitty—she had already tried that once, right when they'd come back, as it were. Instead, she goes with the awkward, jarring phrase he'd given her in the emergency room waiting area so long ago after she'd dislocated her shoulder.

"There, there," she says quietly, and he looks at her in a calculating fashion that almost makes her feel uncomfortable with his scrutiny. "Penny's here."

She doesn't expect the wildly frantic hug he suddenly throws around her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX


	16. The Laser Tag Disinfectant Argument

Bernadette makes her way up the stairs when she gets a text from Penny, instructing her to come on in and not knock. She frowns at that, because she isn't entirely sure what it could _possibly_ mean. She still finishes the final round up the stairs, and looks curiously over at 4A before she goes to 4B instead. She doesn't knock, but she does send a quick text to Penny, and lets her know that she's here.

Bernadette is wholly shocked to see Sheldon curled awkwardly on Penny's teal couch, his hands pillowed beneath his head, which is resting on Penny's lap. Penny looks a little frantic herself, like she knows something's wrong, but she has no idea what.

Penny screws her nose up for a minute, as if trying to think of something. "Why does someone lose funding for an experiment?" she finally asks, and her words are awkward, as if she isn't entirely sure she has said the right thing.

She has said it correctly though, and Bernadette frowns as she sits on the coffee table (after moving a stack of paperwork out of the way). "Why do you ask?" she replies, the same bemused frown heavy on her features.

Penny sighs, and runs an absent hand over Sheldon's hair. "Sheldon. He said he lost funding for his research?"

Bernadette frowns harder. "Monopole research? He's one of the top in his field though, not to mention a leading researcher _in_ that line of M-theory—why on earth would they cut his funding?"

"I don't think they cut it," Penny edges out. "Something about the paper he was writing; he said his boss didn't take it or it got rejected—", she looks like she might be on the verge of tears. "I don't know; I can't explain it!"

Sheldon wakes a little to her frantic voice, and sits bolt upright when he realizes his head is lying on Penny's lap. He blinks owlishly at Bernadette, who hadn't been there beforehand. His stomach immediately growls at him—its past lunchtime, but he isn't even sure he's actually hungry, and Penny looks _sad_. She shouldn't because it wasn't _her_ fault that he should have known better than to take who he did just because the thought of interviewing other candidates made him physically ill. Bernadette looks curious and hurt now too, and drat, he can't read their faces enough to pick out just _what_—

Bernadette stops his train of thought, darting her hand nervously to his bony knee. "Dr. Siebert rejected your grant proposal?" she asks carefully.

Sheldon nods stiffly.

Penny bites her lower lip, and her voice is hesitant. "It's because of the Arctic, isn't it? What they did?"

Bernadette looks and feels extremely confused now. "On what grounds? What do you mean, the arctic and what "they" did?" Her fingers tighten. "Howard told me about it; I didn't think you'd ever lose funding because of it though!"

Penny looks a little surprised, because Bernadette's a scientist before anything else, just like the rest of them. "I guess that depends on what he told you," Penny finally says with caution, because it really isn't her story to tell.

Bernadette tries to think of a nice way to say it. Howard had said that Sheldon couldn't have detected monopoles up there even _with_ the LHC _or_ proof of the Higgs-Boson, let alone with the equipment they had available. He mostly just remarked that it had ended up being a miserable 3 months of no results and nothing publishable to his name—flawed design, Howard had called it. There had been more about how Sheldon being difficult then there had been about what had actually happened.

Bernadette sighs. "He really just said that there weren't any publishable results; the hypothesis couldn't be supported with the data collected. That doesn't mean the experiment can't be replicated with different equipment, a better design, or just…different…hypotheses…" She trails off, because Sheldon's face is actually looking _angry_, and Penny—Penny, who's always worn her emotions on her face—looks like she could literally _kill_ someone.

Sheldon snorts.

Penny sighs. She had been afraid of that answer, in all honesty, and so she makes a concentrated effort to try to drain some of the anger from her face. She's pretty sure she could murder someone right now with her eyes alone.

"Sheldon, I think I borrowed a couple of seasons of Star Trek from Leonard a while back; why don't you put some on?" Penny finally asks. "I'm going to show Bernadette how you like your tea."

Sheldon snorts derisively again. "You don't need to carry on a private explanation about the true events of that particular experiment, Penny. It implies a certain emotional response that would suggest I am not able to withstand hearing about it—this is untrue, and insulting. The situation itself was…" He stumbles for a moment. "_Difficult_, not unbearable."

Penny sighs again, because that isn't what she meant at all. "I didn't think you could stand it, Sheldon," she says firmly. "I thought having to hear about it all over again would just make it worse."

"The response still stands. Please be sure to use the real sugar and not the aspartame."

The mid-morning of the day fades into the lunch date where they order in for pizza instead, and Sheldon tells Bernadette what actually happened (tampering with the way the equipment read the readings from the environment around them, the resultant false data compared to the real, negative data, so Wolowitz wasn't completely lying—simply only telling half of it).

The afternoon has worn into early evening when Bernadette has exhausted herself of the questions she had. Certainly, she would have been angry with Howard if he had told her all that. On the other hand, she's furious that he assumed his version was all she needed to know, for whatever his reasons were—as if the only reason she was friends with Sheldon was through Howard himself, and she would carry the same opinions as he, no matter what the issue.

Sheldon looks worn out by the time they've finished, and now it's almost dinner time to boot (he refuses to reheat the pizza, Bernadette agrees because—much to Penny's amusement—it's been sitting out for too long). The conversation had flitted from the expedition itself to other things in between, and it surprises everyone in the apartment that it's nearly time for supper.

Sheldon gets up, and rubs at his eyes. He hadn't cried, though his eyes were heavy with indecision about something, and unspoken words that refused to push themselves past his mouth. Even though he hasn't given into the emotional response of tears, his throat feels constricted, and his heart rate is slightly elevated as he makes excuses to leave.

"I believe I've fulfilled my friend-needs for the evening," he finally goes with, because he doesn't want to tell them, "Thanks for being present to view my emotional breakdown and my weakness as a human being". It makes him bristle a bit that the emotional response had been so strong to begin with. He had been pleased in the past at his ability to push it away for so long, forget for even longer nearly everything regarding the Arctic expedition. That had been the best option in the past—it hardly rectified the situation to bring it up or, as his father would say, "No sense in beating a dead horse". Sheldon usually preferred the aphorism of trying to get blood from a stone, as it had reminded him of alchemy. Even as a child, nuclear chemistry was fascinating.

"You're welcome, sweetie," Penny says instead, and even though she looks a little tired too, she gets up with Bernadette, and she walks both of them to the door. "I think you should stay for dinner."

Sheldon eyes her messy coffee table. "It would appear your new job has requirements still for you to fulfill tonight, and Bernadette also has results and data she must work through—I have another proposal to work on, if I'm to try and procure any other funding for my research." He says it stiffly, like he still doesn't quite believing it that his funding was rejected on the basis that it was.

Penny sighs reluctantly. "You're always right."

Bernadette grins a little weakly, because Sheldon doesn't look up to jokes. "Since when has Sheldon ever been wrong?" she points out.

"Biological urges," he mutters before he can tape his mouth shut mentally, and both women look at him. He glares witheringly at them. "It was a slip of the tongue, brought upon by—"

Penny proceeds to show him how enjoyable a real slip of the tongue can be, and _dear Jesus_, Bernadette's hands are skating along his Flash tee-shirt. He gives into the first impulse he has had since he was seven, and had decided that if his cape had the proper lift and there was a good headwind, he could fly, so he'd jumped off the roof. The impulse has him turning away from Penny's mouth, and catching Bernadette's instead.

He hears Penny give an appreciative sound that's based in the back of her throat; one of her hands is in his hair, and he's not sure where the other went until his own fingers thread through Bernadette's hair, only to meet up with one of Penny's. He's _still_ not sure why it's so gratifying to touch their hair—he supposes it's one of those things he may never figure out.

He bends awkwardly just to reach Bernadette's mouth though, so he gives into the next impulse of kissing Penny again, because she's easier to reach. His hand doesn't leave Bernadette's hair, and follows her head when she goes to skip her lips across Penny's shoulder.

Sheldon is completely unprepared for the slight surge of heat that erupts in his lower belly and groin when Penny pulls back, and gives him a calculating look. Bernadette looks a little confused too, as if she's not sure _why_ on earth Penny would stop—until Penny turns her head, catches Bernadette sweetly on the lips, and clutches at Sheldon's hand tighter in the shorter girl's hair.

He's completely embarrassed at the tiny whimper that falls out of his throat, because he's sure they heard it, but are either too busy or too polite to notice it. His skin feels on fire, and it doesn't help when Penny's wicked fingers come to dance at the hem of his pants, and it helps even less when a smaller hand comes to join it. He thumps his head against the door, because he wants to kiss one of them, and they're too busy with each other to notice.

Penny finally pulls away, drops her head against Sheldon's chest. "Sure you don't want to stay for dinner?" she asks, and her grin makes him feel a little better.

"He's kind of right about work," Bernadette answers before he can though—normally, he would be a little put out, because he's pretty sure Penny was asking _him_, but then again, he's afraid his voice might actually crack a little if he tries to talk.

Penny pouts a little, but she nods and pulls away. She shoves her hands into her pockets. "Then tomorrow for laser tag?"

Sheldon nods—he thinks he can _finally_ talk again when Penny brushes her lips across his casually, and does the same for Bernadette, and he realizes he can't really speak.

"See you in the morning then," Penny replies, and starts to open the door. Sheldon shuts it by leaning back against it. He jerks forward, gives her the same sort of clumsy kiss he had on Wednesday, before turning to Bernadette and doing the same. "You keep doing that, I'm not going to be so kind letting you two out," Penny warns.

Bernadette nods vigorously. "She's right," she agrees. "She kept me behind ten minutes the other day."

Sheldon tries to imagine the two of them kissing, being together and not wanting to let go of each other long enough to make it out the door. It makes his knees weak, so he starts thinking of elements again.

Penny laughs; it's huskier and deeper than he's used to, and he watches as Penny slides her hands deftly over Bernadette's face, and they rub noses with the same laughter.

"You're forgetting the five minutes after you came back," Penny points out, and brushes her lips against Bernadette's once again—she straightens Bernadette's glasses out, because they're a little skewed from all the movement.

Sheldon hopes the whimper's not out loud this time. When he gets back to bed, he goes backwards from the end of the periodic table so that his brain requires more blood to think it through properly.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The sun has barely risen when Leonard wakes again to the sounds of someone bumbling around in the kitchen. Well, it isn't so much bumbling, but someone is definitely moving around out there. It wouldn't have been odd, except there were other voices too.

Leonard isn't sure he wants to see Sheldon preparing for laser tag with Bernadette and/or Penny. In the end, he grabs his glasses and puts his robe on, because he's pretty sure he just heard Bernadette squawk in a similar way to Halo night, and squawking more than likely means arguing.

He rounds the corner, hearing Sheldon's condescending voice sputtering with indignation. Sure enough, as Leonard exits the hallway, Penny's lounging on the armchair with a bowl of cereal (low fiber—brightly colored enough that he's pretty sure she brought it from home) and a cup of coffee bigger than all of the coffee cups he's ever owned. She quirks an eyebrow at him, as if daring him to say _anything_ to her at all.

Leonard swallows thickly, and instead turns to Bernadette and Sheldon, who are talking about disinfectants almost too quickly to understand. He's only catching random words—sterilizer vs. sanitizer, surfactants and surface tension—it's too early for this. He shakes his head, and debates walking back to his room, because seriously, the temperature around Penny _dropped_ about ten degrees when he came in, and he's not feeling inclined to ask.

"We could've solved this by simply going for paintball," Sheldon mutters, and rolls his fingers against the table. His other hand taps against the betadine.

"They're _not_ going to let you put all that stuff on the equipment," Penny offers up around a mouthful of cereal.

"Do you really want part of this argument?" Bernadette asks wryly.

Penny shrugs. "Not really. I'm just making a good point. They're not going to let you wash the equipment in a bleach and ammonia bath."

Sheldon turns at that, looking slightly horrified. "Penny, really—bleach and _ammonia_? I'm of the understanding that your knowledge of disinfectants in general is possibly the same as Amy's monkey, Ricky, but _honestly_—_ow_, Bernadette! Stop it!"

"You were being a jerk. Now, I'm telling you—and I work in a lab that _specializes_ in the usage of these sorts of chemicals—"

"You're being discriminatory towards my career as a physicist! It's entirely plausible with my higher IQ that I know more about these chemicals than _you_ do!"

Leonard can see the saturated potassium iodide solution from where he's getting coffee—no one seems to be acknowledging his presence, and he's isn't sure how he feels about it. He turns again, and decides to make an effort to be social.

"It's true—you're talking to the mastermind who dumped an exothermic reaction of—", He doesn't finish, because Bernadette looking at him like she didn't realize he was there, and then proceeds to lurch back into it with Sheldon about why simple rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide might be better suited to their needs. Bleach and betadine will stain, and she doesn't want to walk around the entire time smelling like a laboratory that she spends too _much_ time smelling like as it is.

Sheldon seems to mentally dig his feet in though, and he launches back. Penny munches on her cereal, which is mostly milk-saturated corn product at this point.

Leonard shakes his head, and takes his coffee back into his room.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Leonard's sitting on the couch, watching television alone, when he hears the three of them stumbling up the stairs. Laughter is trailing over his ears—well, specifically, female laughter, and Sheldon's indignant voice is calling over it. Sheldon doesn't sound particularly angry—more like he _wants_ to be, but can't quite muster it over the barely-there amusement underlying his tone. And…a hint of _fondness_?

With a glance at his watch, Leonard frowns—they've only been gone a couple of hours, not long enough for full rounds of laser tag.

"How on earth do you expect to earn return business if you expel your actual paying patrons out of the arena, dear _lord_—what sort of establishment did you _drag_ us to, Penny?" The door opens; Sheldon's face is reddish from his tirade.

Bernadette looks like she couldn't talk to save her life, but the grin on her face is nearly splitting her lips.

Penny's holding her side. "Well, maybe you shouldn't shoot the little kids and then tell them that that's how the _real_ world works! You had that gun pointed at the kid, execution-style!"

Sheldon sniffs. "Well, that _is_ how the real world of shooting works—there's no _cheat_ codes in laser tag."

Penny starts into a new round of giggles, using Bernadette for support. "There's no crying in baseball?"

Bernadette erupts into laughter; it's not lady-like and actually involves a bit of snorting because she's doing it so hard. "No crying in laser tag either," she gets out.

The three of them seem to notice for the first time that Leonard's looking at them like a fish.

Penny wipes her eyes, smudging mascara as she does so, and not caring one little bit. "C'mon, Bernadette—I've gotta get changed," she manages between her bouts of mirthful laughter.

It leaves Sheldon in the apartment alone with Leonard, who looks at him curiously. "We have been banned from the laser tag establishment of Penny's choosing," he says simply. "Apparently, the owners frown upon the fair play of shooting whoever attempts to shoot you first." He leaves the room without another word.

Leonard sits back against the couch. He's out of the loop on this one, he's sure of it—and he's not sure he _wants_ to be in on it at all, if it involves getting banned from a place of fun and amusement. On the other hand, it kind of hurts a little that they continued their plans anyway. He harrumphs to himself, crosses his arms—laser tag's for kids whose parents won't let them go paintballing anyway.

He can still hear Penny and Bernadette's laughter though, and glances up when Sheldon comes back out of his room, wearing his regular Sunday shirts and Sunday plaid pants.

"Where are you going now? We're supposed to—"

"I'm taking in a marathon of Lord of the Rings," Sheldon responds, pulling his jacket on. He quirks an eyebrow, "I believe I attempted to persuade you to make alternative arrangements with Koothrappali and Wolowitz today; it appears that my advice went unheeded. I believe if you try now, you can still be able to salvage your day." He exits the room; Leonard hears him rattling off questions about the theatre to Penny, who blandly answers yes or no to any and all queries accordingly.

Leonard frowns, his eyes squinting as he sits back against the couch once more. Something is most _definitely_ up. The game's afoot—and now the Batman tv theme is stuck in his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Howard picks at the brisket his mother has put in front of him. He can tell just by smell that she's gone heavy with the damn salt again, but he isn't about to tell her that. It's not even that he's afraid of offending her—she'd more than likely just roll her eyes at him and dump in another shaker worth just to spite him—he chews through it though, because he's hungry, and she did burn the crusts of his toast the way he likes it.

"When were you gonna tell me that you and that nice Catholic girl broke up?" she suddenly yells at him, because she's as deaf as a post to even her own voice.

"We didn't split, Ma," he yells back. "I'm takin' mah lunch to mah room!" He picks his plate up, and ignores whatever she's screaming at him now. It hurts to think about Bernadette, quite a lot. The ring is still sitting beside of his laptop, next to the star necklace he was going to give her.

Howard sighs as he plunks down on the bed with brisket-beef sandwich. He's tried everything he knows—talking to her, inviting her to paintball, to the movies with him and Raj, including her in on Olive Garden Monday (where even though his mother's deaf as a damn post, it doesn't mean she didn't finally notice the obvious). He's at the end of his rope; he knows he's losing her.

His laptop is blinking with unread e-mails. He doesn't really want to go through them, and has little desire to accomplish anything if Bernadette's not right beside him to cheer him on like usual. He still can't quite place what he's doing wrong; only that he can't seem to stop whatever it is. All of this seemed to have come out of nowhere to Howard—all beginning on Halloween.

Now New Year's around the corner, and Howard's not looking forward to having to explain Bernadette's absence. He really isn't looking forward to seeing Jeannie again, and is hating it even more to think of having to chat with happily married cousins about their lives when his own life had gone to the crapper.

The e-mails are from NASA though. He can't ignore them, he wants to—but he can't.

Howard sighs and rubs a hand over his face. He'll have to think more about it later—work waits for no one, and Raj had promised he'd come over later to play Risk. He never passes up the opportunity to play Risk with Raj—the astrophysicist has a scary, prodigy-like ability to whoop ass at it. Howard hates to lose—it's difficult when it's to someone who beats him so thoroughly that he's almost tempted to thank Raj at the end.

Bernadette will come around. Or she won't.

His stomach clenches, and he grits his teeth to get through the e-mails.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Sheldon, is that really necessary?" Bernadette hisses.

Sheldon's still squawking around the theatre, drawing the attention of some angry-looking, cosplay-orcs in the left corner when he comes near them. It's nothing compared to the snootily-angry elves in the other corner, and one of them looks to be carrying a replica long bow.

Thankfully, it appears to simply be shimmery plastic once Penny gets a closer look, and she lays a hand on Bernadette's arm. "Just let him do his thing. If you interrupt him, it'll take him twice as long," she points out. "He really can find the best seats, I promise."

In the end, Sheldon's a little huffy because they end up having to sit directly _behind_ the acoustic spot of his choosing, because the seats are already taken by a pair of tired looking couples. He leans forward to offer Red Vines for their seats before Penny jerks him back by the collar of his shirt.

"Don't you dare," Penny snaps. "You held a laser gun on a kid's head today—consider this karma."

"Hokum," Sheldon mutters, but curls into his seat, all stiff limbs and irritable, jerky movements. Bernadette offers popcorn, as if to distract him. He waves it off, fingers fluttering over the frizzy bits of her hair—it's not as smooth, he notices, because she had opted not to do much with it since they were engaging in laser tag all morning. He hunches further down in the seat (much to Penny's amusement—or she's nauseous; he can't tell).

One of the women in the two couples turns her head irritably. "Is he going to whine and bitch the whole time if we don't let him have the seat?"

Penny considers for a moment; Sheldon's blustering. Bernadette lays a hand on his arm, which seems to coerce him into immediate stutters that are more utterances of sound than actual words.

The woman nods at one of the men, and the two couples begin to get up.

It's not amusing until Penny realizes the two women are holding hands, and the two men are shuffling into their seats far closer than any male normally would. She resists the urge to crack up as she sits on Sheldon's side and stretches her arm behind Sheldon's shoulders so she can play with Bernadette's fly-away hair.

Bernadette smiles brilliantly as the lights begin to dim. "What's so funny?" she asks.

Penny shakes her head, burying it into her own shoulder since Sheldon looks like he's going to jump if anyone else touches him. "Seriously…I don't _even_ know sometimes."

Sheldon mutters, but seems disinclined to complain, even when Bernadette's fingers keep brushing against his for popcorn. He even stops twitching halfway into _The Two Towers_, despite the fact Penny is still touching him against his shoulders.

The goosebumps have subsided at the contact, and he's not ready to seize. His heart rate is still elevated, and Sheldon isn't sure he's entirely fine with the fact that Bernadette is persistently brushing his hand with her own—however, if he has to choose anyone's hand to come into contact with, Bernadette's is a safe bet to always be properly sanitized.

He tells himself that he isn't disappointed at all when she stops hitting his fingers after the popcorn's gone. He finds himself unable to verbally say _anything_, however, when she finally just grabs his hand.

Sheldon turns to ask her just _what_ in the sweet lord's name she thinks she's doing, but then she flashes him a brilliant smile, and his throat closes at the warmth he sees there. He decides he should ask Penny, because Penny would know what Bernadette's doing, but when he turns his head, Penny's hair is what he meets, because she's decided to lay her head on his shoulder at that precise moment.

Sheldon's completely stiffened now in the seat, and Penny reluctantly sits back up, sensing his discomfort. He sighs, squeezes his eyes shut. He means to open them, because Legolas is about to go gliding down the stairs on a shield, and he's always wanted to pick the scene apart further for the actual dynamics and force required for someone of Orlando Bloom's height and weight to remain upright on a concaved, metal plate and still be able to shoot a long bow with accuracy.

Instead, he opens his eyes and heaves a sigh. He feels a kick to his seat, and he turns his head sharply towards the two couples behind him. He has _no_ clue why one of the men waves a hand at him. He regards Penny silently without looking at her. She wasn't being insistent, of which he was grateful, but at the same time…

Sheldon looks back at the screen, and without breaking the contact with Bernadette or taking his eyes off the screen, he lifts an arm awkwardly around Penny's shoulders. He wants to inform her it's simply because if she's going to attempt invading his personal bubble, then he at least wants to be comfortable, and the angle that she wishes to violate his shoulder with demands that he lift his arm at precisely—

His mind shuts down to the movie, because Penny's hummed happily against his shoulder as she lies back on it a bit, and reaches over to trace her tanned fingers over his and Bernadette's. The contact has become worth it, just for that bit of vibration he feels through his shirt at her contented hum.

Sheldon swallows thickly against the sudden lump in his throat—he wants to say it's fear, wants to say it's disgust, wants to say that it's _anything_ but the fact that he doesn't want them to _stop_.

Instead, he watches the scene with Legolas and begins calculations in his head—until Penny places her hand over his and Bernadette's, and doesn't move it away again. He's lucky to catch Eowyn decapitating the Witch-King in _Return of the King_ before he realizes he's barely been paying any attention at all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's been a fairly tame night in 4A, where Howard, Leonard, and Raj have spent most of the night doing a Babylon 5 marathon in Sheldon's absence. The remains of dinner are on the coffee table—Japanese from a place that Raj swore by—and they more veg more than talk.

Howard clears his throat though, sits up a little. "Not that I'm not enjoying the No-Sheldon-night going on, but where is the giant bag of neuroses?"

Leonard shrugs, and decides that rocking the boat would only do more damage than it's worth at this point. "Movies, I think."

"By himself?" Raj asks curiously, and Leonard shoots him the kind of look that makes Raj wish Howard or Leonard were an attractive female, just so he wouldn't ask the wrong questions at the wrong time.

"I guess," Leonard retorts, but his voice is pitched highly. "I'm not his babysitter."

"He's sure been weird lately though," Howard comments, reaching forward to pick at the remains of his teriyaki chicken.

Leonard snorts—he absolutely wants Howard and Raj's help on figuring out what's going on with Sheldon, Penny, and Bernadette, but it will to have to wait till Leonard can figure out just how the hell to bring it up without sending Howard into a rage of blinding proportions.

"Hey, I heard you and Leslie Winkle were working together again," Raj says, hoping to change the subject, but both Howard and Leonard are looking moody.

Leonard snorts. "I'm a glorified secretary," he laments, and sits up a little. "She dictates her observations; I take notes."

Howard looks confused. "You made it out that she needed the extra hands—why not use them?"

Leonard shrugs as he glares at his hibachi vegetables. "She was…iffy about having extra hands on the project." He doesn't want to talk about the Arctic, and if he tells them that Leslie had been all but browbeaten into accepting Leonard's assistance, it will invariably come up. "You know how Leslie is sometimes," is what he says instead, because it's easier to simply blame Leslie's difficult personality.

Raj shrugs. "It's a difficult research area for women; dude, you know that." He pushes his shrimp lo mein around. They really need different topics, but he's almost afraid to bring anything else up for fear of it simply recycling to moody conversations. "Anyone want to watch more Babylon 5?"

The conversation finally turns for the better, even if it's mostly Howard celebrating the fact that the apartment is currently Sheldon-free (no one seems to care much how it happened, only that it did). It devolves into jokes about crazy routines and obsessive control of all things within the apartment.

Raj sighs—it's better than girl-topics, he supposes, though he isn't all together thrilled with the way Howard and Leonard tend to take Sheldon down, especially when Sheldon's not there. He's got a nasty feeling that there's quite a lot of fecal matter just waiting to strike a rotational blade with a tight angular momentum.

Yeah. He puts his lo mein to the side, his lack of appetite making him quiet and a little moody himself, despite the fact that Howard and Leonard seem to have cheered up a little. The shit's completely about to hit the fan.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's later than any of them really expect by the time they arrive back at the apartment building; Bernadette is dropping them off since it's on the way, and she's surprised at Penny's excitement (as well as her own) over the movies. She's not excited about how late it is, but she's still pretty happy overall. Lord of the Rings has so much decent eye candy, though she'd kind of lost her focus about halfway through the second movie.

Sheldon practically nods off in the front seat as she finally pulls up to the building and parks quickly in one of the first spots she sees. The ride home has been quiet, seeing as Sheldon had demanded silence so he could attempt a brief nap on the way home in order to retain his usual required amount of REM sleep.

Penny pulls Sheldon gently out of the car; he yawns and bats her away, but the movement is slightly more affectionate than anything else they have seen from him—it's almost fond.

Bernadette smiles, and doesn't mind as Sheldon uses her shoulders for support as they make their way up the stairs. Penny's smiling on Sheldon's other side, looking at Bernadette now and then because Penny can kind of imagine how sweet the three of them must look, and it makes her absurdly warm.

Sheldon is never one to linger, and once they get to the fourth floor, he makes quick work of saying good night. He brushes Bernadette's hair from her face and then swipes his lips across Penny's cheek before he quickly disappears into his apartment.

Penny tucks her own hair behind her ear, and Bernadette's slightly amused at the pinkish color tinting the taller girl's cheeks. Penny turns and begins jiggling her keys into her door; it amuses Bernadette further when she drops them all together.

They're both kneeled in the floor to pick them up. "So we're doing this?" Bernadette asks quietly. "Is this a smart idea at all?"

Penny shrugs, and pushes some more of Bernadette's hair from her face, her fingers tracing the skin of her cheek. "Just…we're just kind of…" She falters, her words are stilted. "Winging it is underrated, you know."

Bernadette laughs despite herself. "Winging it is frowned upon in the scientific world."

"Relationships aren't really…scientific."

"Sheldon could and would argue that until he's blue in the face and stroking out."

Penny grins. "That's why you two have me." She stands, and her hands are hesitant for a moment before she slides her lips easily across Bernadette's cheek, feeling the skin heat and flush almost immediately.

The door quietly opens from 4A, and Sheldon, dressed in Sunday-night pajamas, looks at them disapprovingly. "Good neighbors hardly sit around in their hallways having conversations while others are trying to sleep," he says warily, but doesn't come out of the apartment.

Penny giggles, waves to them both, and enters her apartment as Bernadette gives a shy goodbye-motion and exits down the stairs.

Sheldon closes his door and enters his bedroom; Leonard's already in his room as well, for which Sheldon feels inexplicably relieved. He cocoons himself into the blankets without much thought for it. He falls asleep quickly, given that all three of the directors' cut movies had run a bit longer than any of them had imagined.

Oddly, he's not angry when he does dream that night—he should be; the dream itself involved working as a knight at Medieval Times (perhaps if he hadn't turned out to be brilliant at the age of 7 maybe; _bazinga_), with Penny as a bar wench and Bernadette as a damsel in distress. It's almost a blending though of reality and fantasy, where it's not so much restaurant-work as it shifts into an odd mixture of real-world _Canterbury Tales_ and _World of Warcraft_, where there's dragons and elves and dwarves, and it isn't about the one ring, but about magic tricks involving three that won't come apart.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	17. The Ternary Revelation

Author's Notes: As always, a big thank you to my beta, Sam. Any remaining mistakes are my own. Also, sorry for the lateness of the post! I got caught up with making sure all of my junk's in line for uni starting on Monday.

Speaking of university and school starting, there isn't a nice way to sugarcoat it, so the blunt truth is that chances are, updates _will_ slow down. I have a pretty decent cushion, but not as much as I would like. Today's lateness is just one example. Again, sorry for the late post; I know I've said in the past I'll post Saturdays and Wednesdays! On the bright side, this chapter's extra long! :-) Enjoy, folks.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Raj looks at the three-person chess board skeptically. Leonard and Howard are flipping through the typed up handbook that Sheldon had left sitting on the board. They both look deep in thought, flipping back and forth to reference pages and other rules.

Leonard groans. "It's like the roommate agreement all over again." He flips back, reads a line quickly, and then goes back to the original place Howard's holding. "I already have to sign and renew that every year."

"It was your idea to play, hell. I barely remember what the rules were in the first place," Howard points out. While his moodiness over Bernadette is still apparent in much of his attitude, he seems to be trying to cover it up as best as he can. "I wanted to go to the comic book store," he adds.

"We just have to skim the rules…it's not like we haven't played," Leonard says as Raj rolls his eyes.

Raj doesn't listen for Leonard's return; instead, he gets up to grab a soda from the kitchen. As always, there are several neat stacks of composition notebooks on Sheldon's desk. Sheldon is never stingy—per se—with his research and hypotheses, but Raj nearly always feels as though whatever he is helping Sheldon with, Sheldon keeps everything on a need-to-know level.

Leonard and Howard are now debating other options and putting three-person chess away. Raj takes a seat absently at Sheldon's desk to curiously thumb through one of the notebooks. It never ceases to amaze Raj how truly brilliant Sheldon is, even if the taller man's astrophysics can be rusty at times (though it's rare for Raj to need to actually correct anything).

Theoretical physics requires as much natural brilliance as it does mathematical genius. It isn't always the "how", but also the "why".

"Raj," Howard interrupts him, "You know better than to mess with Sheldon's stuff. That's two strikes—one for being at his desk, two for looking at his notebooks."

Raj shrugs, still absently skimming the meticulously ordered notations and equations. "Worth it." He puts it down all the same, noticing that the other two men are putting on jackets. "His research is solid, and I _do_ work with him."

"It's only as solid as the proof is," Leonard retorts, because sometimes he gets a little cranky with hearing about Sheldon's work, especially since he lives with Sheldon and hears it more often than he cares to. "Isn't it a little cyclical, constantly finding evidence for the things we don't have the technology to physically prove?"

"That's from your point of view in your field," Raj replies. "Consistency is everything to Sheldon."

Howard zips up his jacket. "Where has he been lately? It seems like he's not really following his usual schedule."

Leonard snorts. "He's busy with other friends."

Howard gives a teasing sort of double-take. "He has other friends? Imaginary ones and subatomic particles don't count."

Leonard really doesn't want to rock the boat, no matter how much he still hurts from Penny. He can't even say with solid certainty how many times Sheldon has even been out with Penny and Bernadette, or if he has even been out with both of them or just one or the other.

"I guess he does," Leonard finally says neutrally, but he can't hide the odd tonal quality to his voice. "He's gotta be doing something to take his mind of his grant proposal getting rejected."

Though Raj is relieved that Leonard's comment prompts an immediate topic change, he remains surprised at Leonard's subtle diversion—it's not like Leonard to avoid gossip. If the bespectacled physicist's voice is anything to go by, he suspects something pretty outstanding.

At the same time, Raj is willing to bet that Leonard knows as well as anyone that Howard is more volatile than a methane hydrate under the sun right now, and no one really wants to die of a methane burp at the moment.

Raj remains in his own thoughts as they head for the stairs. He also knows that if he wants to take the comparison all the way, it is more like Howard is the methane, and Leonard is the fragile hydrate encasing it—the hydrate that may or may not give under thermal energy (Sheldon).

Raj doesn't have much time to think more about it, because the proverbial sun has shown up, and there's two other planets with him to put off thermal energy of their own as well.

Howard recovers quickly at seeing Sheldon, Bernadette, and Penny enter the building together, though he can't quite get the confusion to melt away entirely. Instead, his sole focus remains completely on Bernadette, who looks a bit nervous and like she is trying to inch to a position between Sheldon and Penny.

"Bernie," Howard says, and Raj wonders if anyone else sees the slight muscle tic in Sheldon's cheek, "I didn't know you were coming. Leonard, Raj, and I were just going out, but you and I can go grab some dinner if you want." The invite is followed up with a hopeful, but weak smile, and the entire thing is rushed, as if he knows that it isn't a good idea.

Bernadette shakes her head. She looks a little apologetic, but not regretful. "I already have other plans, Howard. We just came back so Penny could grab her jacket. We didn't realize how chilly it was tonight."

"Perhaps if Penny would dress in layers, it would not be an issue," Sheldon points out dryly, and glances at his watch. "We're late."

"I'll be right back," Penny replies as she heads for the stairs. She's completely unsurprised when Leonard follows her, and though she doesn't really want to talk to him right now, she doesn't particularly feel like there's anything to hide either.

Besides, Penny is really tired of avoiding everyone, especially with the knowledge that Sheldon is probably getting some kind of crap from Leonard at the apartment—she really hates that thought.

"You're letting Sheldon go out with Bernadette?" Leonard asks. His voice is high though, like he is frantically waiting for the confirmation that it is Sheldon and Bernadette instead of something else. "You _know_ he doesn't know any better; he doesn't know what it looks like, hanging out with Bernadette while she's taking a break from Howard."

"We're all adults; we can go out with whomever we please," Penny points out. "And it isn't really any of your business anyway—we're not dating anymore." It makes her gears grind to think that Leonard calls it as Bernadette "taking a break" when they both know better.

Leonard bristles with hurt. "You don't have to keep reminding me, you know."

Penny shrugs. She isn't going to take the bait of feeling sorry for him, no matter how strongly he throws it. "You followed me. You can still go the other way." She keeps her tone as neutral as possible, because she genuinely feels that staying calm is key here.

She is not stupid enough to not understand why she feels like she's treading thin ice—but she had still hoped there might be some more time before Leonard cornered her further about his suspicions. She also is not blind enough to think he didn't suspect _something_.

"What the hell is really going on between you three?" Leonard finally snaps. He sounds like he has reached his breaking point, and looks more frustrated than she has ever seen him.

Penny remains quiet as they finish the walk to 4B because she is considering her next words carefully. Never one to label anything, Penny dislikes the idea of speaking for Sheldon and Bernadette in addition to herself. She hates putting names to relationships, because it requires commitment. She is still thinking on how she actually is not that afraid of attaching herself to Bernadette and Sheldon when Leonard interrupts her reverie.

"Are you even going to answer me?" Leonard asks as she locks her door behind her.

Penny sighs, because he sounds more petulant than anything now. "That depends on whether or not I even should." She slides her red leather jacket over her shoulders, and has just brushed her hair from under the collar when they hear the abrupt, angry yelling and scuffling on the ground floor.

By the time Penny and Leonard get there, Howard is nursing his hand. Sheldon looks unwavering, despite the quick bruising of his left eye and the hand over his nose and cheek. Bernadette is staring at Howard in shock. Raj looks like he might finally break his habit of silence for the first time _ever_.

"Not going to hit me back?" Howard jabs angrily. "I can take it!"

"I'm 97% certain that you most definitely could _not_," Sheldon responds in a neutral, sure voice.

"What the hell?" Penny yells, and immediately cuts through the foyer to get a closer look at Sheldon's face. She winces, because it looks like Howard actually clocked him pretty good. She only knows because she has hit both Howard and Sheldon before, and the bruising is closer to what Howard's face looked like than Sheldon's.

Howard is still glaring furiously. "You don't think I can take a hit? _Penny_ punched me, and if I can handle that, I can sure as _hell_ handle anything you can toss!" He shakes Raj off when his friend yanks at his sleeve. "You _knew_ we were having problems! Come on, hit me _back_!"

"The problems were nearly entirely of your own making. I believe you are misdirecting your anger," Sheldon responds, but his voice is sounding nasal and achy.

Howard lunges at him again, and stops abruptly when Bernadette suddenly seems to have come unfrozen; she firmly places herself between the two men, and pushes Howard back firmly, but not hard.

"You're acting like a child," Bernadette says, and she deliberately grabs Sheldon's hand first, then… Penny's next. "Let's get you some ice."

"We'll go to Sheldon's; he's got every first aid need under god," Penny says, and ignores the way Leonard's mouth has fallen agape. "They were just going out, right?"

Bernadette nods, and Sheldon's tittering about proper medical care and Dr. Stephanie the entire way.

Leonard looks at their linked hands, but isn't listening to their chatter as they round the corner of the second floor. He knows his mouth is open, but he can't seem to close it. Without taking his eyes from the stairs, Leonard cocks his head in Howard and Raj's direction.

"Wanna catch me up?"

Howard glares at him, because he isn't in the mood for whatever weak jokes Leonard might have about being on the outside of things. Raj has Howard's hand now, inspecting the bruised knuckles and swollen fingers.

"You wanna be caught up?" Howard asks blithely. "Fine. Sheldon just told me that the paradigm has shifted between Bernadette, himself, and Penny, and while I'm not "entitled" to an explanation of his or their romantic "endeavors"," he's quoting heavily and sarcastically, "He did feel it prudent to inform me that he is attempting what is "commonly" called a fucking _triad_ with our exes."

Leonard isn't sure if his stomach drops or if it's because his heart has jumped, but either way, he feels like someone's just yanked the floor out from beneath him. The suspicions make sense, including but not limited to the recalcitrant silence and redirection he has received to any and all inquiries on the matter.

"I'll talk to him," Leonard tries weakly, but Howard's not in the mood. With a stilted goodbye, Howard and Raj exit the apartment building.

Leonard wonders if he's going to see either one of them ever again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon is not surprised that Leonard avoids him until Penny and Bernadette have taken their leave. The two women managed to convince him that there was not much more to be done by a medical doctor for (to use Penny's vernacular) a "black eye" or (Bernadette's) "a heck of a shiner", and so he allowed Penny to hold his hand while Bernadette donned latex gloves and gently iced his face. The skin feels hot and achy, but the bruising and swelling has been minimized. It still looks terrible in the mirror, and he does not envy the questions he will receive at the university. He does not mind the explanation—only the annoyance of being asked several times per hour.

Sheldon is still icing his face slightly while balancing one of Stephen Hawking's books on the arm of the couch when Leonard enters the room. Sheldon is not afraid of confrontation, especially with Leonard. He is more irritated that Leonard feels that what Sheldon does in his personal life is suddenly big news and something to be discussed extensively.

Sheldon really does hate banal chit-chat. He would think that someone with Leonard's detailed background in the history of anthropology would understand and know that it was just as common in hunter-gatherer days as it is today for a male human to take more than one female as a partner at a time. The only thing that is _un_common, in Sheldon's view, is that not only do both women _know_ about it, but seem to be as interested in each other as they are him.

A tendril of anger is working its way up Sheldon's spine, and the emotion is based deeply in possessiveness and the need for privacy. Sheldon doesn't feel the need to explain his actions to Leonard—at the very least, he wants to keep the comfortable safety and easy affection he shares with Bernadette and Penny as something solely belonging to himself.

It is almost all of why Sheldon has started to head for the hallway as Leonard enters.

"You do understand why Howard punched you, don't you?" Leonard asks dully, having taken a seat in his armchair.

Sheldon doesn't turn from where he had made it to the entrance of the hallway, one foot on the step. "Is it your turn to strike?" He hears a frustrated noise from Leonard.

"You really don't understand why, do you?"

Sheldon finally turns, because he is tired of fighting and avoiding. "If you are referring to the popular aphorism, "bros before hos", then yes, I do understand." He raises an eyebrow. "That was why I asked if it was now your turn."

"It's not about taking the guys' side. It's about getting into a relationship with your friends' exes!"

"I'm slightly confused. If they are, to reference your terminology, _exes_, then what business is it of yours or Wolowitz's what Penny or Bernadette do now on their own time?" He steps towards Leonard. "I would imagine that it would only bring more suffering on your part, and Howard's. Furthermore, I believe I implied not too long ago that the word "friend" needs redefining. I'm given to think that you did not question that."

"Are you saying that you're not really friends with any of us now?" Leonard's voice is high again, as if he is watching something happen around him for no actual, explainable reason.

"I'm saying that if you and Wolowitz consider yourself as anyone's _friends_, than I should hate very much to see how you treat those you dislike." Sheldon glances at his watch. "It is past my normal bedtime, and my face hurts. Goodnight, Leonard."

"We're not finished!"

Sheldon sighs, because he really is quite tired. "You may not be done, but I assure you most certainly that I am quite through." He exits to his room.

Leonard stares and sighs. He feels like once again, he is out of options.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Girly, where's your head today?"

Rider's voice snaps Penny from her thoughtful trance, and she stares at him warily. "I don't know, _boy-o_," she replies with a deliberate stress on the endearment she once heard on _Titanic_. "Probably wondering how you manage to not only pick the worst writers around, but also some of the worst producer-buddies too. When do we talk about your casting directors? That last audition screening you had me sit in on was painful."

"Leave the producing and financials to me. Did you get through the story-pitches you've had for a week now, while we're on the topic of someone making things painful?"

"Most of them—the plot lines for your existing series aren't bad, but Rider, _seriously_. You've _got_ to get some better ideas from your pals over at SyFy. This megasaurus versus snakenstein stuff is junk change—you're making nothing on it."

"I didn't hire you to manage my finances." He stares at her seriously now, in a way that she knows he's not just being an ass to her. "I hired you to look pretty, find some decent writers, and make sure the series I am attached to are getting the attention and talent they deserve."

She wants to scream at him to cast _her_ then, but she refuses to put her job on the line for any one of the crappy pilots he seems to think will go longer than a season. "Look, I had a friend look at your budgets and returns on your last three direct-to-tv movies for that company, and he says you're barely breaking even, and losing money on pilots that aren't getting picked up."

"Boyfriend?" Rider snorts derisively. "Let me guess, one of those writers you've actually argued _for_?"

Penny gives him the same snort in response. "Give me more credit than that,_ please_. Sort of a boyfriend—but he's still a frickin' math genius."

"Define math genius, girly."

"I really wish you'd stop calling me that; only my dad calls me that." Penny almost bursts into slightly manic giggles, because she realizes as soon as it comes out of her mouth that it's nearly word-for-word something Sheldon says to her _all the time_ and she never lets up on calling him Shelly or Moonpie these days. It's kind of their thing anymore—she wonders in the back of her head if Bernadette's parents ever called her anything, or if Bernie was always the go-to nickname.

Rider doesn't either. "Question still stands, _girly_."

Penny sticks her tongue out at him, because if Rider is going to act like he's 5, than so is she. "He's a theoretical physicist. How the hell did you think I knew when your other writers were full of shit? Or that the one pilot you wanted _so badly_ was really just a cheap knockoff of Stargate with screwed-up science?"

Rider rolls his eyes at her. "I would think that you check these facts yourself."

"I _am_ checking them; he's one of the best," Penny replies simply, because she knows it to be true. Her phone is buzzing an alarm in her pocket, and Penny turns the clock on her desk towards Rider. "You're late for your 3:00 with Sally."

"Which one's Sally again? Not my wife, right?"

Penny does laugh a bit at that, because it's a common joke with him. "She's the one who's pitching for the show about magic mirrors, but it's basically live-action Airbender, so no."

"Then why am I going, girly, and not you?"

Penny sighs. "It has potential, and if she lets you have creative license, it could be great. Get your lawyer involved or whatever it is you producers do—like you said, producing's your thing and not mine." She tosses him his wallet and keys, and picks up her purse. "See you tomorrow." Penny waves her to-do list at him (dry cleaning, bank deposits, contracts for said-lawyer's paralegal to thumb through, the post office and— lastly— the damn kennel).

They walk together from his office towards the elevator in silence. He's on his phone the minute they get out on the ground floor.

Penny is turning away to go to her car when she hears Rider snapping his fingers at her. She hates when he does that, but still turns back with a raised eyebrow.

"You've got auditions tomorrow around town, starting 7AM sharp," Rider says. He balances his phone against his shoulder as he pulls a crumpled sheet of paper from the inside of his jacket. "Be there at 6:30AM. Later, girly." He walks away, still going on his phone. "No, not you, Alex. The blonde bimbo."

"I haven't even looked at the scripts for anything!" Penny calls after him.

Rider turns and approaches her again. "You won't need to—not those kinds of auditions."

Penny, though ultimately confused, still stares at the list of addresses and times as Rider's voice fades away, because she is a little surprised. She waits until she gets into the car to squeal in excitement.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bernadette is disappointed when Penny calls to cancel for the night, but it is hard to stay that way when she is told why. She congratulates Penny enthusiastically, and is even more surprised when Sheldon shows up, wearing vinyl pants over his usual cords, and holding an issue of the latest journal from the Microbiology Association.

"You rode the bus?" Bernadette asks when she finally realizes why he's wearing the vinyl pants. She pulls a garbage bag from under her sink for Sheldon to store the protective wear in.

"Penny has already gone to bed, owing to her arduous day tomorrow. We still had plans regardless. As the plan itself had been, to use Penny's terms, "hang out", I did not see why you and I should cancel as well."

Bernadette flips the filter on her sink faucet before turning the water on. "What did we say about sanitizer?" she asks when Sheldon starts to pull a small bottle from his pants pocket.

She's already scrubbing her skin up to the elbows in a quick, thorough fashion that Sheldon admires. She points to a drawer beside of the sink.

When Sheldon opens it, there's a nail brush sitting there, still in the packaging. His lips barely quirk at the corners, and as they scrub their skin together, he gives into the urge to bend down and skate his lips awkwardly across her head.

Bernadette only smiles beside of him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penny had not wondered yesterday why or how Rider had gotten her six auditions packed into one day. She finds out after the third one that all of the addresses (and therefor, auditions) are with local theatre groups. She does not know right away whether she is angry or not, because she had come to California to act. It's true, local play productions are still acting, but it still is not quite what she had in mind.

All the same, it gets her onto a stage where the casting directors let her finish. It almost gives her that feeling she had when she got the role of Lady MacBeth in her high school production of _MacBeth_. It's not what she had in mind—but it works.

Rider had been right about one thing—so far, all of these auditions have had her doing improvisation on the spot from a script handed to her moments before she got on the stage. It makes her hugely nervous, but in a way, she can sort of understand why the directors are requesting it. Play productions do not always go smoothly, and it pays to know when someone can still strut their skills in the face of something unexpected.

The scripts themselves aren't original either—the fourth audition, like the first three, is for something fairly well-known (the first had been Shakespeare, of which Penny isn't a terribly big fan. The second had been for a British play called Endgame that Penny only remembered because of her British literature professor, and the third had been for Snow White). The fourth had been for Alice in Wonderland (which Penny was fairly confident about, as she had gone with reading for the Cheshire Cat).

Penny fights the traffic to get to the fifth one, wondering seriously if she is even going to get there on time. It turns out not to matter—the fifth one is a bust. She gets there, and they have already cast everyone. It's not an unfamiliar feeling for her, though it makes her feel a bit better when they say it isn't because of her—they had simply had good luck with casting.

It makes her look at the sixth address with reluctance. She resigns herself to it, because Rider has put a star beside of it.

Penny watches other people go first from the audience; there's more people at this one than all of the others combined—she can see why, it's for a production of _Wizard of Oz_, and the theatre itself is the biggest out of the six she has been to. She is trying to figure out who she wants to read for (_hell_ no to Glinda; that bitch was hella manipulative—not Dorothy either; she is way out of the age range) when someone kicks her seat from behind. She ignores it at first, because it was most likely an accident—there were a _lot_ of people here, and it was difficult to tell who was already working here and who was auditioning.

Maybe the Cowardly Lion? No, that's not her either. Her seat is jarred again, but she isn't paying attention enough to care.

"You should try the Wicked Witch of the East," a smooth voice says, and her seat is sharply kicked once more. "You'd only have to pretend to act for five seconds when the house falls on you."

Penny whirls, because she knows the voice—sure enough, Alex fucking Rider is smirking at her. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Alex crosses his arms behind his head. "Finished the pilot for _Lab Rats_; I needed something to hold me over until it gets picked up."

"Good to see Daddy doesn't pay for everything." Penny cocks her gaze at him. "Have you considered trying out for Glinda? You'd look smashing as a bitch-fairy."

Alex rolls his eyes. "You can't treat me like that just because you're working for my dad, you know."

"Because thanks to you telling him what a bimbo I am, he got a ton of revenge for you by hiring me as his assistant."

"Alex, you know people are auditioning," another voice comes, and Penny turns to see a middle-aged woman with long, brunette hair and an admonishing look on her face sit beside of Alex. "You're still going to be my Cowardly Lion, right?"

Alex goes pink in the face, and shrugs off the hand the woman puts on his arm. "_Mom_, not now!"

Penny wants to laugh, she does—but it kind of reminds her of how she thinks Sheldon and his meemaw might be, so she holds it in. "Cute," she finally says, and hopes it sounds sincere as she turns back around. Wicked Witch of the West, definitely.

"Who's your friend?"

Penny turns in her seat. "Penny," she says cheerfully, and extends a hand. "I'm reading for the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Are you now," the brunette replies. "Charlotte Rider."

"Mom, that's Dad's assistant," Alex mutters as he slumps into his seat. "He only sent her here because she works for him."

"God, do you always have to be like that?" Penny asks. "Maybe he thinks I'd be good at this."

Charlotte shrugs, and waves over to the group of people sitting in the front row of the auditorium. "Well, let's see then. You were reading for WWW, right?"

Penny almost falters for a minute, because her brain has automatically wondered why she would be trying out for a website, before she remembers the acronym. "Yeah."

"Well, get up there then. The guy reading for the Tin Man's almost done." Charlotte brushes a hand over Alex's hair. He bats it away, but Penny smiles at the obvious affection and fondness in their relationship.

Penny finds herself directed immediately to the stage—she hasn't even _looked_ at the script really, because she had been busy with deciding _who_ she wanted to try out for, and then she had been distracted by Alex and his mother (well, Rider's wife who gets "eager" when female assistants of his call her, and _oh dear god_, she can't be thinking about that right now, Charlotte's gesturing her up to the stage).

Penny takes a deep breath, and, on impulse, pulls her hair into a low, tight bun as she walks onto the stage. The script feels sweaty in her fingers—almost slippery—so she puts it on the stage floor, and decides to improvise the entire way. She has nothing to lose on this audition—Rider's made it clear to her that she is more valuable to him as an assistant than as an actress (often, if she is to be honest).

Charlotte is staring at her for a moment. "The scene I want you to do is with the munchkins. Kids are pretty hard to terrorize believably when they're cute."

Penny curves her lips into the best sneer she can think of—should be a piece of cake; if the Cheesecake Factory has taught her nothing else, it has taught her that no matter how cute the kids are, vomit and coke will _always_ smell terrible and take three washes to get out.

At the end, Penny is pretty sure that she made at least two kids cry—she apologizes after the scene is done, and even gives them some MM's she had in her purse. She doesn't like children, she really doesn't—but two kids out of a gaggle of them running around her ankles had been worth it when Charlotte tells her she's got the part.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You made a kid _cry_?" Amy asks excitably, and claps her hands in delight. "Bestie, I don't think I could be any prouder of you than in this moment."

Bernadette nods vigorously. "Children can be the _worst_, especially when they attack in large groups."

Penny shrugs, and brings over a bowl of popcorn. Both she and Bernadette had elected not to tell Amy yet, because no matter how resilient Amy is, Penny has insisted that her feelings will still be terribly hurt over the exclusion.

Bernadette only sort of agrees, mostly because she herself had thought if Penny was going to end up with her or Amy, Bernadette would have most definitely put all of her life savings on Amy.

Amy pops a few pieces of popcorn into her mouth. "But you got the part, correct?"

"Yes. The kids weren't bad—Charlotte says they're all kids from her third grade class, and some other kids from some teachers at her school or something. She does the theatre after school and on weekends. Can you believe it, she's a teacher?" Penny asks. "Can you imagine dealing with kids _all the time_?"

Bernadette rolls her eyes. "No need to imagine what was a reality at one point," she retorts.

Penny laughs it off, because Bernadette has that semi-serious look in her eye that precedes moodiness at times. "C'mon, Bernadette—you deal with Sheldon spectacularly."

Amy snaps her fingers, as if she has just remembered something important (she has). "That reminds me, bestie."

Penny tosses a piece of popcorn in the air and catches it in her mouth. "Yes?"

"How is the attempted ternary union progressing between Bernadette, Sheldon, and yourself?" Amy asks curiously and eagerly. She almost looks like she's going to pull out a notebook to record observations. "I've never had the opportunity to observe a triad relationship before in homo sapien; they're discussed in tribal habits of chimpanzees of course, but this presents me with the chance to compare!"

Bernadette has gone absolutely white, while Penny chokes on a small piece of popcorn.

Amy immediately rushes over and hauls Penny up bodily in order to give abdominal before Penny brushes her off quickly, and grabs a bottle of water from the table.

"Was it something I said?" Amy asks, because she is genuinely confused. She had heard through the grapevine (a drunk visit from Raj) that Penny, Bernadette, and Sheldon were attempting a romantic relationship of some kind. Amy truly isn't that surprised, given Bernadette's unique understanding of Sheldon's obsessive need for cleanliness and Penny's take-no-crap attitude. She wasn't hurt either—Raj seemed to think she would be.

Amy remembers having quietly put Raj to sleep on her couch, because she really did have observations to write down of Raj being able to talk to her while drunk.

Amy waves a hand in front of Penny's face. "Penny!"

Penny seems to snap out of it, and coughs again abruptly.

Bernadette decides to take over, because Penny appears to have lost her voice. "Amy, why on earth would you think that?"

Amy frowns. "Why, Raj told me of course. He'd had half a bottle of wine by that point, but he wouldn't let me prepare a placebo drink for him in order to see if there was a marked difference between sobriety and inebriation—what?" She stops at the end, because Penny sort of has that "Kill" look on her face again, and Bernadette looks a little unhappy. "Surely you didn't think I wouldn't know? Sheldon's got a shiner worse than the one I got during my undergrad when pledging for a sorority."

Penny sighs. "No hiding anything from you, Amy, is there?"

Amy sips from her glass of wine, and she looks thoughtful for a moment before she replies. "Sheldon's injury, of which I believe is referred to as a black eye, comes from one punching someone quite hard in the maxillary and suborbital planes of the facial structure. I could see no reason for why Rajesh would decide to exert physical force on Sheldon, so my natural deduction was that it was Howard or Leonard."

Bernadette frowns. "What does that have to do with you finding out anyway? What does Sheldon having a bruised eye have to do with you knowing about it?"

Amy holds up a hand. "Bernadette, I know you can be impatient at the best of times, but please allow me to finish."

Penny brushes a hand over Bernadette's shoulder before the shorter girl can retort, because Bernadette's been picking up comebacks from not only Sheldon, but Penny as well.

"The natural deduction is that something has made Howard or Leonard angry enough to physically lash out at Sheldon. The logical reasoning is that it involved you or Penny. I can also make the case for Leonard not throwing a punch since Leonard is still trying to get back into everyone's good graces after paintballing with him left us with a bad taste in our mouths."

Bernadette wants to ask again what _any_ of this has to do with Amy knowing anyway, but Penny squeezes her shoulder, and she sips her wine to keep her mouth busy.

"So," Amy continues. "The deduction is that Howard has punched Sheldon because Sheldon has decided to pursue a relationship with Bernadette."

Penny frowns. "Bestie…you're losing me here." She uses the endearment to help Amy along.

"While I would not be terribly surprised to see Bernadette and Sheldon attempt a scientifically, mutually satisfying relationship," Amy continues, beaming at Penny calling her "bestie", "I also did not believe Bernadette capable of, as some people call it, "two-timing"." Amy uses her fingers as quote marks.

"Two-timing? Who am I two-timing?" Bernadette squawks before Penny can quiet her.

Amy sighs—really, Bernadette can be as tedious as Leonard, though it's somehow more sweet with her. "As my reasoning is that Bernadette is incapable of holding two relationships at one time, and I know that she is not in one with Howard, Rajesh, or Leonard, that simply left Penny and Sheldon. I knew for Sheldon because Howard cold-cocked him. I knew for Penny because of the night with the popcorn chicken, Penny couldn't stop touching your hair. It is similar to chimps grooming a mate possessively, in order to let other members of the group know that a mate is theirs, and not to be poached upon."

Penny frowns—she can hardly remember that night. On impulse, she gets up and gives Amy a tight hug around the shoulders. Amy seems to flail for a minute, her skin turning red with pleasure and embarrassment as she awkwardly hugs her back.

"Bestie, not that I don't love getting hugs from your wonderfully welcome arms, but what is the occasion?"

"Because you're the most observant person I know," Penny says, and gets up to grab another bottle of wine. "Twister anyone?"

Amy nods enthusiastically. "Oh! Is this becoming a sleepover?"

Penny flushes a bit when Bernadette looks a bit hopeful. "You know what? Why the hell not." She'll have to scramble around her room for clean things to loan out, but she honestly doesn't mind a girls' night.

Bernadette grins when Penny hands her a tank top and a pair of plain grey shorts. She doesn't mention that she'll add it to the back of her closet when she gets home.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon struggles to pop the tension-caused crick in his neck. He hates departmental get-togethers, though not as much as he hates the small talk he is forced to engage in at said-functions. He has already swiftly shut down conversations with Koothrappali (who has clearly needed the champagne to talk to anyone in the room since there are women present), Leslie Winkle (who had oddly arrived with Barry Kripke, which sort of makes Sheldon want to gag), and Leonard, who was forcing the smile on his face so hard that it made Sheldon want to ask him if Leonard's face was about to break.

Instead, Sheldon simply stands near the back corner of the room since it is closest to the exit. One never knows when someone will get clumsy with something dangerous, so evacuation options are first on his mind.

He doesn't expect Dr. Siebert to approach him. "Dr. Cooper."

Sheldon nods at him, nursing a glass of water that he had made himself when the bartender had given him a funny look. "Dr. Siebert," he responds. "I'm given to think you approached for a reason."

"Dr. Cooper," Dr. Siebert sighs, and there is already a thread of frustration lining his voice. "I'd like to speak to you about the Arctic Expedition that you attempted several years back."

"If several is defined as three."

"A few years back then. The entire matter has been very hushed between you and the team members you took along."

"That was by design."

Dr. Siebert rushes some of the bourbon in his glass down his throat—it always takes at least two fingers worth to talk to Dr. Cooper; he is wishing he had brought a second glass. "If I were to offer you another research option, what would your choices be for team members?"

Sheldon stiffens a little. "I suppose that would be dependent on the option being offered."

"Your work on monopoles has been invaluable; you already know that. This is for faster than light travel."

Sheldon snorts. "I'd rather you refrain from wasting my time and yours. That experiment has been proven flawed and unrepeatable by anyone else in the scientific community."

"You work with young Dr. Koothrappali—his side-research has included searching for gamma ray signatures of dying stars to predict other gamma ray bursts. Perhaps you could help him along?"

"I have little interest in searching for things that are already dead. My interests, as you know, are more to why the dead have given us irreconcilable problems now, and how the problems we face now will give other intelligent life the same."

"Dr. Cooper, do you see what I'm trying to do for you here?"

Sheldon quirks an eyebrow. "I'm given to think you want me to pursue other research options in order to obtain funding for the university. I believe you _hired_ me to conduct research regarding groundbreaking discoveries in theoretical physics, of which I have."

"We are losing interest in our physics department, Dr. Cooper," Dr. Siebert finally says firmly, because Cooper understands bluntness, if nothing else. "More importantly, donors are losing interest."

"That's hardly my problem."

Dr. Siebert flags down a waiter, who brings him another bourbon. He drinks it quickly, and stares Sheldon directly in the eyes. "Your problem has now becoming finding a way to reconcile all of the data that's up here," He taps his own temple, "Into something we can shout about."

Sheldon's eyes go cold. "Physics is always something to "shout about", as you say," he replies neutrally, but there's an unnatural chill coming off of him in waves. "You are demanding answers to questions which we have barely begun to understand, let alone ask. You should know as well as I do that if you were looking for instantaneous fixes, the theoretical physics side was hardly the right place to come. Why not approach Hofstader?"

"Hofstader's off-limits for further research projects of his own," Dr. Siebert replies, and he does not break his gaze with Sheldon. "You of all people should know why."

Sheldon doesn't have a response ready; he drinks from his water again. "Is this why you wished to speak of the Arctic Experiment?"

Dr. Siebert gestures Sheldon towards the exit. They walk in silence until they are outside in one of the few smoking areas around the university, and Dr. Siebert promptly lights a cigarette. Sheldon licks a finger quickly to determine where downwind is so he can stand opposite of it.

"Right now, with the information you have given us over why the experiment design was flawed, there isn't much we can deduce as to what went wrong with the data or the results." Dr. Siebert drags hard on the cigarette; Sheldon grimaces, both at the nasty habit and at Dr. Siebert's probing tone of voice. "The only thing we can tell donors when they ask about experiment results in the past five years from your department is that you haven't done a major field experiment since the Arctic. The only thing I have to tell them is that Hofstader's on assistance work, Wolowitz got snatched up to do further work with NASA, and Koothrappali is working for you. Whether you could even do another major field experiment is the major question, and following that? The question then becomes whether or not you would be able to accomplish it. Hofstader isn't the only one regulated to assistance work; you simply only turned in your monopole research proposal only recently." His eyes glitter under the streetlight with unveiled, desperate curiosity. "Why did it end poorly, Dr. Cooper?"

"I believe I mentioned interpersonal issues, and high tensions."

"So you want me to tell donors that you were involved in a pissing contest over whose cabin fever was the worst?" Dr. Siebert replies bluntly. "I'm not asking you to hang anyone out to dry, Dr. Cooper."

"Are you quite certain of that? I most assuredly feel as if that is exactly what you are doing—just not in so many words."

"I'm asking you to tell me who screwed what up so I have something to tell donors to let them know the problem has been rectified and fixed."

Sheldon swallows hard; he can already feel muscles going off in his face. He hates it when it does this because it makes him feel as if he looks like he's going to have a seizure. He feels a little like he is actually going to.

"So you are asking me to hang someone to save others."

Dr. Siebert sighs again. "I'm asking what really happened in detail."

Sheldon tips his fingers against the condensation on his now-warm water. "Allow me to write a report."

"With full disclosure? I need something, Dr. Cooper."

Sheldon swallows again with difficulty. "Full disclosure." He does not make the promise, because he is not sure what he is actually going to type up.

Dr. Siebert nods, and stubs out his cigarette. He seems to know that Sheldon is not telling him everything, and is making no promises to do so. "Dr. Cooper," he says, and hopes his tone is laden with enough solemnity that the younger doctor gets the idea, "I cannot impress upon you that it is vital for funding of the physics department, vital for our scientific reputation, our academic integrity…" He stops for a moment, because the bourbon seems to finally catch up to him, "It is imperative that we find a valid, scientific explanation for the lack of publishable results for such an expensive endeavor."

Sheldon nods. "I believe you have made your point, Dr. Siebert. In addition, I recommend that you attempt to take in more water to avoid the negative consequences of overindulgence in the morning."

Dr. Siebert blinks a little. He is sure that Dr. Cooper just told him to be careful or he would have a hangover, but it is always a lot like a minefield when dealing with the young man.

"Good night, Dr. Cooper. I expect your report in one week."

"There is one other thing, Dr. Siebert."

Dr. Siebert turns at the last minute, his eyebrow quirked in curiosity and attention. Dr. Cooper's boyish features hold curiosity and seriousness. "Yes?"

"Why now? This experiment took place nearly three years ago. If there were to be fall out owing to lack of funding, I do not see why it has taken you this long to approach any one of us about a more definitive report."

"Dr. Cooper, I say this because despite your unique…abrasiveness, I do feel the need to be candid," Dr. Siebert replies reluctantly. He is the president of this school, and the bourbon is allowing him to relax the smallest amount around the normally staid Dr. Cooper. "I'm going to answer two questions."

"I only asked one."

"You implied the other—I asked you for the report because I feel yours would be the most objective. The actual question of why now is that I feel you are finally at a point where you can speak of it more honestly than you might have before."

Sheldon looks at him for a long moment, as if he is debating something else. "This would be because of the facial bruising."

Dr. Siebert's lips curve before he can stop it. "Not that it surprises me someone might have punched you, Dr. Cooper; do not misunderstand. However, if a dynamic has been altered and you are now able to explain yourself as to the lack of publishable, reliable data…" He trails off, as if letting the rest of his statement go unsaid.

Sheldon wrinkles his nose. "If you are ending your sentence early for dramatic effect, you of all people should know that it goes lost on someone of my intellect."

Dr. Siebert wants more bourbon. "I'm suggesting that one of your friends would be the one who clocked you. Whether or not you deserved it is none of my concern. Bring me the report, Cooper."

"It's Dr. Cooper," Sheldon retorts disdainfully.

"Goodnight then, _Dr._ Cooper." Dr. Siebert leaves without waiting for a response.

Sheldon sighs, and looks up into the night sky, as if the stars will provide answers the way they did for lost sailors centuries ago.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	18. The Revision Realization

Penny normally tries not to stay informed of what Leonard's plans are, but it becomes difficult when she heard the frustrated yelling coming from 4A. She could not make it out until she finally catches that Leonard's leaving, because Sheldon's driving him up the wall.

She tucks her script for the play under her arm, and knocks cautiously on the door. It is not unusual, naturally, for Leonard to be frustrated at Sheldon's antics, or even for Leonard to leave the apartment all together to avoid them. However, she had ended up cancelling on Sheldon and Bernadette on Thursday night, and Friday night had been some function at the university, so Penny had opted for a girls' night with Amy and Bernadette both just to relax.

It is almost time for laundry, and her basket is waiting patiently by the door, because laundry night is kind of their thing.

She does not expect Sheldon to not answer the door. It is completely unlike him—she has seen it before where Sheldon can't even let a phone ring more than three times if he is present to answer it. She knocks again instead, because even though she knows Sheldon has Vulcan hearing, he might simply have been unable to hear it.

Penny sighs, and tries the doorknob. The fact that it is open surprises her as well, and she finds Sheldon hunched over his laptop with one whiteboard on either side of his chair. They are both scrawled and marked several times over with notations, erasures, and equations that she cannot even begin to understand. None of this is terribly odd, to be honest.

The odd thing is that there are papers and open composition notebooks all over his desk; some have even been made into stacks on the floor.

"Hey, Sheldon," Penny says cheerfully.

"I'm working, Penny. That was why I didn't answer the door."

Penny frowns at his abrupt tone. "Is your blood sugar low?" she goes with, and rolls Leonard's computer chair over. "You sound cranky." She moves one of the whiteboards away.

Sheldon still does not turn from his computer. "I have already eaten, and once again, I'm _working_." He pulls the whiteboard back to its original position.

Penny sighs and leans back in her chair. "What's the matter?" She uses her foot to tug the whiteboard away again.

Sheldon does finally turn at this, and glares at her sharply. "The matter is that there is an irritating chatterbug sitting next to me, not letting me _work_." He jerks the board back once more.

Penny sucks in a breath, because her first response is to either kick him or smack him with her script. Her second response is noticing he looks like he hasn't really slept that much, and his eyes are a little bloodshot. She struggles to make her body relax to a non-threatening state in the chair.

"Maybe the irritating chatterbug is worried that you're overworking yourself."

"No such thing," Sheldon scoffs. "Please kindly see yourself out."

Penny eyeballs the glass of water that sits on a coaster atop Sheldon's file cabinet. She puts her script down with a thump, picks up the glass of water, and dumps it down the side of his board. Sheldon immediately squawks indignantly, jumping up from his chair in shock.

"Penny, that was my _work_."

Penny glares at him. "You have an eidetic memory; use it."

Sheldon sighs, and hunches over in his chair. "It was wrong anyway." He pulls a few paper towels from one of the drawers on the other side of his desk, and begins wiping the wet board down. "I'm working on something rather important, Penny. Perhaps another time?" His voice is a little softer this time, but the exhaustion shows more clearly than it had before.

Penny frowns. "It's laundry night."

"I realize that; it's my schedule." Sheldon finishes with drying the board off, and meticulously begins to rework the original markings. "An alteration has been required to account for an extra duty foisted upon me by Dr. Siebert." He gives her a look that makes her think she ought to hug him and let him know she's here for him. "Please, allow me to work. I would hate to rethink the switch we have unknowingly made from friends to triad."

Penny blinks; she thinks he might be trying to drown her a bit in big words so she will get annoyed and leave him alone. Instead, she promptly plops down onto the couch. "Work away then. I'm looking at the script for my new play."

"Congratulations, by the way," Sheldon finally manages before turning back to his work. "I believe you will make an acceptable Wicked Witch of the West."

Penny is not sure whether she should be insulted or not, but goes to studying her lines in silence as Sheldon taps away at his keyboard. His attitude is almost reminiscent of him being stuck on something, but she does not know enough about his work to really make a call on his "stuckness", as it were.

He clears his throat when she puts her feet on the table, so she promptly takes them down. She sighs and curls up in the corner opposite Sheldon's spot, and begins studying the script in earnest.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's nearly one in the morning, and Penny's exhausted. Working for Rider has had her going to bed fairly promptly by eleven or so every night so she can wake by five or six am. Sheldon is still going at his computer, whiteboards, and notes. She watches him intently, because the words of her script are swimming before her tired eyes.

She is seriously considering pulling in Bernadette, because now he really does have that same, balled-up, manic look to him. The difference this time is his eyes are connected to everything surrounding him (it honestly looks as if he has intentionally walled himself into his computer desk; Penny wonders if there's really any "if" about that) and there are no marbles on the floor.

Penny reconsiders the Bernadette front, because she has now seen Sheldon nod off at least three times in his chair, only to startle himself awake. He's also switched from water to Mountain Dew. She glances at the clock, and pops her neck as quietly as she can, but Sheldon still stiffens at the sound.

"Sheldon," Penny says quietly. "Didn't Bernadette say that your neuro-thingies or something get all dull from being up for too long?"

"I assure you, Penny, my neuro-receptors are quite recep_tive_." The keyboard tapping doesn't stop.

Penny grimaces—it's past 1AM now. Bernadette is most likely asleep.

"But you need your sleep if you want to give the best of your attention, right?" Penny tries again. "You can't work properly on a sleepy brain."

"The proper intake of caffeine is adequate enough to prevent the need for sleep for at least twelve more hours."

"Crashing out isn't the best way to recover." Penny puts her script to the side, and stands up with a resigned stiffening of her shoulders. She cannot call Bernadette every time Sheldon needs to be pulled from his own head; she needs to learn how to do it too if this is going to work (she ignores how much she wants it to, because she really likes both of them—she really does, but she wants to make sure first that they can get past the group imploding as a result of their relationship).

Sheldon sighs. "Penny, I understand what you are trying to accomplish. However, I'm quite aware of the limitations of my body and mind. There are few, in case you were curious."

Penny approaches him with heavier footsteps than she would normally use, because she wants to make sure he knows she's coming near him.

"If you're going to dump water all over my whiteboard again, I'd prefer you do it to this one," Sheldon says, pointing vaguely to his right. "I've already got copies of it written down."

Sheldon nearly jerks directly into the desk when Penny's hands come down on the back of his computer chair, her fingers just brushing against his shoulder blades. "You really need to sleep. Do you want me to call Bernadette?"

"I hardly imagine Bernadette counting to three will have the same effect as last time."

"Honey, we both adore you, but neither of us really want to be digging you out of a ball pit."

"Ball pits can be quite fun, I'll have you know."

"Yeah, if you like that sort of germ-infested environment."

"When one has gone without sleep for several days, one doesn't always care about the things they should care about."

Penny's fingers brush against his shirt. "Perhaps rethink that statement, but substitute people for germs?"

Sheldon sighs, and drops his head forward a bit. "Penny, this paper is of the utmost importance. There are extraordinarily dire consequences depending on how this paper turns out."

It is Penny's turn to sigh; she is not winning this by a long shot. She decides to do it her way then. "At least get yourself away from the desk. Come watch Star Trek with me."

"You don't watch Star Trek."

"I can start." She turns his chair around gently and kneels in front of him. "Sheldon, honey—it's past one in the morning, you've shifted your laundry schedule, and I'm two seconds away from calling in Bernadette to get you to just…to just _stop_ long enough to get yourself some decent sleep so you can really give it your all with a fresh mind."

Her hands are on his knees as she talks, and Sheldon wants to touch them, to find some way to tell her that it is perfectly okay for him to push himself this way, especially when someone's job could be hanging in the balance. Their group is already destroyed, but he is trying his best not to bear any ill will in his assessment of the Arctic.

Penny looks up in surprise when Sheldon's fingers just barely hesitate over hers before lying on them. "Please?" she asks. "I know it's important, I really do. That's why I'm trying to get you to understand that a well-rested brain is a better brain. And yours needs more energy, because it holds more stuff."

Sheldon cannot help the quick lift of his mouth. "Not all hope is lost, if you understand that higher intelligence means a higher caloric requirement as well as a longer recuperation period to be in top form."

Penny smiles at him; it makes Sheldon feel like he can do this. She turns her hands under his so that she is holding them instead of letting his rest on hers. "Go to bed," she says quietly, and leans upward to kiss his cheek. "Finish your paper in the morning, okay?"

"Alright." She begins to turn away to leave when his voice interrupts her. "And Penny?"

Penny turns. "Yeah?"

She is not as surprised this time when he physically reaches for her, and grins a little because the hug he gives her is so reminiscent of the other two hugs they have shared just between them. His long arms are awkward against her shoulders, as if he is more pinning her to him than actually hugging her. Instead, she relaxes against him despite not being able to really hold him back, and feels him bury his nose against her hair.

It is over before she really has time to savor it, but before she can smile at him and kiss his cheek again for a goodnight, he surprises her once again with the same sort of clumsy kiss that she is learning to expect from him. She likes that he is unpracticed with it, because it means she and Bernadette are the first ones special enough to him for him to acclimatize to human contact.

Sheldon passes a hand over the messy bun of her hair, still managing to catch a few strands between his fingers. "Goodnight, Penny."

"Goodnight, Sheldon." She picks up her script.

"I really do congratulate you on your new part," Sheldon offers as she gets to the door. "I believe you will terrorize the munchkins accordingly."

"Oh, sweetie—you have _no_ idea." She grins at him, and blows him a kiss as she leaves. Just as she is entering her apartment, she texts Bernadette.

Sheldon turns back to his computer, and thinks briefly of both Bernadette and Penny. He almost wishes he had dug in harder about going to bed, because Penny had threatened to call Bernadette. In the end, he turns off his computer and erases his whiteboard. Penny might not have realized that the equations were all recalculations of the data gathered from the Arctic (one had been for the tampered data, the other for the real data), but Leonard certainly would, and Sheldon has finally allowed Penny to release some of the stress associated with Dr. Siebert's ultimatum.

Sheldon puts his whiteboards away, and brushes his fingers over his mouth. His hand smells faintly of Penny's hair, and he can still taste her mouth on his. He is no better at human contact than before he started this with Penny and Bernadette, and he wonders if that is simply how he is always going to be.

The thought is surprising when it comes—it is that he hopes he can adjust to their touch.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Leonard frowns when he wakes up to an empty apartment. He had gotten in pretty late last night (albeit probably loudly, not to mention he is not entirely sure of how he got undressed and into bed), but the apartment had been dark, and as tidy as it always was. Unsure of how much Sheldon he can really take, Leonard's a little relieved when he comes into the kitchen.

Sheldon has left a note on the fridge though, simply saying that he will be working on something at the university today. There is no further explanation, but it is not uncommon for Sheldon to work the occasional Sunday in pursuit of utilizing any and all free time.

Leonard turns on Babylon 5, even though he is actually kind of tired of the show. He has the urge (but not the inclination) to press Penny for more details, because if what Howard has said has any truth to it, then Sheldon embarking on a relationship with both Penny and Bernadette is probably going to completely decimate any sort of friendship they had as a group.

He cares about his friendship with Sheldon, he really does. Leonard turns off the television with a sigh; he really is not in the mood for more of a show that he already did a pretty long marathon of with Howard and Raj. He debates briefly calling either of them to see if they have plans, but decides against it just because tension is running high with everyone.

Leonard runs a hand through his hair. If he wants answers, then he should just ask them. He already tried it with Penny though, and she had bluntly told him that it was absolutely none of his business (not in so many words, but it still amounted to the same thing). It makes him all the more masochistically curious as to what the situation really is.

His final source of information is one he does not really want to utilize, but Amy is just as blunt and honest as Sheldon, though she has managed to finally pick up some slang from Penny where Sheldon is either unable or unwilling to do the same. He texts her quickly, simply to ask if she would like to hang out.

Leonard is surprised when she agrees, and grimaces when she suggests paintballing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The ride to the paintball arena is fairly silent, and the small talk is awkward as Amy rents her gear from the front.

"Why paintballing?" Leonard asks cautiously as he puts his visor on.

Amy does the same and promptly shoots him in the chest. "Now that _that's_ out of the way. Why ask if I wished to hang out at all?"

Leonard sighs heavily at the orange mess on his chest plate. "Fair enough—and I can't hang out with you since you're not dating Sheldon anymore?"

Amy hides behind a tree; Leonard ducks down with her, because there're a _ton_ of kids around. Most of them are yelling and laughing at the idea of shooting each other more than playing an actual game. There is no tension or stress to win anything here, of which Leonard is a little grateful.

"Since that is the attitude you pursued when you were no longer dating Penny, and Sheldon wished to spend time in her company, I was under the impression that yes—you can't hang out with me." She fires off a few rounds in a direction that Leonard cannot quite make out, owing to his squatted position in the dirt.

Leonard hears a kid swear, and then the kid asking which of his friends got him that time.

"It was different with Penny and me. You know Sheldon's like…doing something with her."

Amy sighs. "I find your lack of clarity to be tedious, Leonard. Define "something"."

"You know that Sheldon's romantically seeing Penny."

Amy feels a bit like she did in nearly any educational institution she has ever attended, where someone was simply trying to butter her up for something they wanted. She is far too familiar with the feeling to let it pass, and she glares at Leonard.

"Asking for my company today does not necessarily render a more amenable response to your information-seeking," Amy says bluntly, and allows Leonard to shoot around her at a teenager who was aiming at them. "You know as well as I when someone is cozying up in order to gain something for nothing."

Leonard swallows. It was not that he thought Amy would not catch on, but he was honestly under the assumption she did not know. "Maybe I wanted to hang out with you."

Amy snorts at that, and shoves him down suddenly to fire at someone else. "And Ricky might grow wings and fly from a rectum."

"Did you just quote Wayne's World?"

"Would you rather I use the crass terminology of a stoned Mike Myers?"

"No, your point was pretty clear." Leonard starts to ask something else, but sees a group of six teens or so headed their way; it seems one of them finally realized where the miscellaneous shots were coming from.

Leonard tugs Amy up by her hand so they can make a run for it. He does not expect Amy to twist around and run backwards so she can fire upon them. He swears sharply, because now they have definitely been spotted.

They get to the shed and manage to wedge the door shut with a bit of bark.

"So why then did you invite me to share your company today?" Amy asks as she climbs onto one of the benches so she can fire from the slit at the top.

"I wanted to know if you knew, I guess. Aren't you hurt?"

"Not particularly." She is shooting as she talks. "I'm confused as to why you, Penny, and Bernadette all seemed to be apprehensive of my reaction to Sheldon acquiring two girlfriends. Anyone can plainly see that one girl could never be enough for someone of his mental caliber."

Leonard feels a slight shot of jealousy at that. "He's not all that and a bag of chips, you know."

Amy rolls her eyes. "Oh, Lil'Leonard. How can anyone possibly be a bag of chips, I ask you?"

"It's a saying," Leonard mutters, and joins her on the bench. There are a couple of twenty-somethings attempting to push the door open; Leonard has managed to actually get it stuck pretty tightly though, and he takes the shot at them since they _are_ right there. "What I'm trying to say is Sheldon isn't as awesome as everyone thinks he is."

"Leonard, it really isn't about who is awesome and who is not."

"Then why does it feel like it is?"

Amy shifts her gaze to the side to look at him before she begins firing again with purpose. "Perhaps that is the question of the day; the question you should be asking yourself more than anyone else, least of all me."

Leonard gives an irritated sigh again, because he feels like he is asking the right questions, and not getting any of the answers he wants. "Why Sheldon?" he finally snaps. "Bernadette was _fine_ with Howard; Penny and I were trying again, Sheldon had _you_!"

Amy lifts her visor briefly, because her gaze is intent and deliberate. "Was Bernadette really _fine_ with Howard? Does trying something imply automatic success?"

"That doesn't answer the question about Sheldon having you though."

Amy grins and pulls her visor back down as she hops from the bench—she is getting tired of simply shooting fish in a barrel, there is very little challenge (not unlike her relationship with Sheldon, but she doubts Leonard will get the comparison).

"That is probably the easiest of them all," Amy responds. She uses the butt of her paintball gun to jar the bark loose from the door's hinges. "No chemistry—even you know how important that is."

Leonard snorts. "It's not _the_ most important thing—you two were matched by _science_."

"Science is a catchall blanket term. It does not necessarily imply that a reaction will occur. Sheldon and I are like two lumps of the same iron." She can already see that Leonard does not really seem to understand the metaphor, though he clearly understands the lack of reactivity. "There was no attraction," she finally goes with.

Honestly, Leonard is harder to talk to sometimes than just about anyone else in their group.

Amy leaves him standing there with the door finally pried open as she takes off into the forest. He gets three shots to the chest before he realizes he needs to move too if he wants to keep his dignity around the three twelve-year-olds running amok around the newly-open shed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheldon sifts through his neatly compiled observations and notes. There is no way around it, really. No matter how ordered and documented his observations of the experiment were, every single part of his view point is going to be flawed. It makes his teeth grind in a way he is unfamiliar with—Bernadette once said that the way Howard stresses the nickname, "Bernie", sort of makes her head vibrate.

He wonders if the feelings are similar.

None of his observations are usable. None of his mathematic notations on the data, none of the data after the first month even, that he has written down in his books. All of it is as tampered as the false data he used to come to those conclusions.

Sheldon genuinely dislikes the position Dr. Siebert has put him in, because now that he has had more time to think on it, he realizes that what the university president wanted to do was conduct a more thorough investigation without putting anything down on record.

It amounted to Sheldon doing the investigating, and the only thing on record would be the paper he is still working on. The outline for the paper itself is complete—he has briefly seen the other scientists' notes on the experiment (though he has not seen the personal observations, only scientific). The only thing missing is whose idea it truly was in the first place. He knows that Wolowitz had told him it was Leonard's idea.

Sheldon is still hesitant to physically put it to paper, and he hates that his fingers refuse to type it down. Has everything really led up to this, that he is willing to risk his own career for Leonard? The automatic answer is a resounding "no". It does not change the fact that he has been living with Leonard for nearly a decade of his life.

It really comes down to the definition of friendship. Sheldon taps his fingers on the corner of the keyboard, truly hating the curl of fear at the coming changes. He closes his eyes briefly and leans back. Without their personal notes and journals, he has no way of being able to defend their actions. Without their scientific journals, he does not have a way to show how they documented the true data alongside the actual data either. All of the copies Sheldon has are computer files, and Dr. Siebert will more than likely ask for hard, handwritten copies.

Sheldon hunches over his desk. There is a tension headache just beginning to twinge at the base of his neck. There is no way around asking the three men for their personal and scientific journals from the expedition; he does not fear having to accomplish that. He is not even sure he genuinely fears losing their friendship over this either.

It is almost like a light bulb, and Sheldon wants to give into the childish urge to say "Eureka". These moments of clarity and realization are both horrible and wonderful in his opinion, because while they often offer the answer and the correct path, they often make him feel a bit slow for not having seen it in the first place, for not having found the obvious answer.

These "eureka" moments, in Sheldon's opinion, prove to him every time that Occam's Razor is not simply a popular method for scientists to support a hypothesis, but a living, breathing theory that deserves more respect than comedic filler for bad jokes at a convention.

It is not so much that he will be losing friendships, Sheldon finally knows, and this is because three years ago, on the North Pole, those friendships were lost already. Two years ago, they agreed to simply sweep it under the rug and move on, even though it was always there. A year ago, Sheldon had finally managed to quit thinking about it as much—he had more important things to prove and reconcile in the physics world than wondering why friends (fellow scientists, for that matter) would do such a thing to each other. Six months ago, Sheldon had watched in displeasure and irritation as Leonard asked Penny out again, as Bernadette tittered and made excuses for Howard, as Amy tried to push forward.

Four months ago, Sheldon had lost a Green Lantern shirt at Bernadette's apartment.

Two months ago, Bernadette had given Howard the ring back, and Penny finally realized what a cyclical nightmare doing a beta test with Leonard would turn out to be.

Two weeks ago, Sheldon had realized just how important Penny and Bernadette's happiness was—he would always be Sheldon, always be satisfied with his work and his life, but knowing that he could change nothing about himself and Bernadette and Penny would still remain happy made it all the better.

Ten minutes ago, Sheldon had realized that he is neither condemning nor helping anyone by simply refusing to type up what the truth actually is. He is undoubtedly going to require a new roommate, though he has begun to wonder if that was inevitable at this rate. His typing finally begins again, this time without hesitance or reluctance.

Right now, Sheldon realizes he has finally redefined the term "friend", and Hofstadter, Wolowitz, and Koothrappali are not it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


End file.
